Briarcliff Students Participate In Mystery Skype

From Briarcliff Manor School District: Briarcliff Manor’s Todd Elementary School third-graders have been connecting with students from across the country through an activity called Mystery Skype.

“Mystery Skype allows students from different schools to communicate via Skype to try to figure out in which state each class is located,” said technology teacher Lori Whitman.“They can only ask questions that can be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”

Working in groups with different roles, students crafted questions such as, “Does your state have a coastline?” and “Are you in the Central time zone?”

Students in the “Logical Reasoners” group were responsible for developing the questions – a process that included researching which questions were already asked and checking a map to see which states had been eliminated to narrow the scope of future questions.

“Location Experts” were tasked with finding the correct answers to the questions asked by the other students. “Mappers” kept an updated map to eliminate possible states as questions were asked.

After the mystery locations were solved, Todd students had a conversation with the other class to share information about their schools and states.

“Everyone has a job that plays an important role in solving the mystery,” said Whitman. “So far this year, we have ‘visited’ Vermont, Oregon, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah and Kansas.”

Images Courtesy Of Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District