Sample Quests

A Quest is a community treasure hunt that guides people through -- and teaches them how to see -- a unique community treasure. The treasure might be a natural feature in the community (a watershed, a park or wetlands), a cultural site (the oldest building, the first gravestone) or perhaps the setting of a particular story (the life of a person or beginnings of an industry).

Quests can be designed and adapted to explore a wide variety of places; and can be created by classrooms, scout troops, or by youth groups and adult community partners working collaboratively.

For each quest, participants create:

• Clues that guide and teach questers as they move through a site
• Maps or drawings that illustrate the quest and prevent visitors from getting lost
• A treasure box at the end of the quest, which contain a scrapbook, a sign-in guest book and a unique, hand-carved rubber stamp

Once a quest has been created, children, families, adults and visitors embark on the quest to have fun while they learn about the community's landscape and heritage. Families can go questing on holiday outings and for children's birthday parties; daycare programs, schools and camps can utilize quests for educational field trips; tourists enjoy quests as well.

On the surface, a quest seems fairly straightforward: rhyming clues, a hand-drawn map and a hidden treasure box. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface is a program that teaches community landscape and heritage and that fosters a sense of place.

Quests, in general, emphasize three things:

• Mapping the assets of our communities -- our special places
• Teaching about these places in an integrated, multisensory and experiential way
• Deepening community interrelationships: between children and adults, schools and communities, newcomers and old-timers.

Sample Colonial Quests

Claremont Colonial Quest, Claremont, NH

Center of Town Quest, Hartford, VT

Mill Cemetery Quest, Plainfield NH

Prouty Stories, Hanover NH

hartland Anniversary Quest, Hartland VT

Valley Quest of White River Junction, White River Junction VT

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