Treasure Hunt as a Method of Learning Mathematics

This paper proposes treasure hunts as an engaging method for teaching mathematics, arguing that conventional instruction often fails to build genuine mathematical literacy and that interdisciplinary, team-based games can raise motivation, digital skills, and physical activity. Grounded in Bloom's Taxonomy and established principles of good practice, the authors present a cryptography-themed hunt and a complementary digital activity built around the SURFER platform as concrete implementations of this approach.

The central case study involves a one-hour cryptography hunt in which high school students with no prior background in the subject worked through physical and digital puzzles covering Caesar ciphers, Enigma machines, visual cryptography, and public key cryptography. Based on 52 fully completed surveys from an Open Day event, the results show strong engagement: 50 of 52 participants found the activity interesting and 49 reported learning something new. A post-activity knowledge test averaged 0.66 out of 1, with most students performing at an "excellent" level on questions about the purpose of cryptography and the Caesar cipher.

The authors interpret these findings as evidence that the format is both effective and motivating, while acknowledging important limitations. The evidence rests on self-reported attitudes and post-test scores without a control group or pre-test baseline, so the learning gains cannot be cleanly attributed to the hunt itself. The authors identify future work including an online multiplayer version and a controlled comparison study to address these gaps. The paper's supporting literature spans educational video games, escape rooms, and tablet-based cross-curricular instruction, situating the work within broader research on game-based and technology-supported mathematics learning.