How a school project proceeded to become a national hype

The Covid-19 crisis resulted in elementary schools being closed and children having to entertain themselves in and around the house. Organizing a "bear hunt" turned out to be a welcome distraction. The idea became incredibly popular. By 2019, almost everyone with (young) children had heard of the bear hunt map. Go outside and use your phone to search for little bears placed visibly behind the windows of houses.

The bear hunt map

Together with Klaas Schoute, I developed the bear hunt map as part of the elective course IKGEO: a course in which online available geographic information is linked to a clear digital map that is available online.

The idea was born after we stumbled upon an overcrowded national bear map in Google Maps. According to Google's restrictions, it is not allowed to put more than 20,000 data points on one Google Map. Nevertheless, a tangle of local Facebook pages each with their own bear map had emerged. What a pity this beautiful initiative is now so fragmented, we thought, upon which we started building a new clear national map, on which all bears can indeed be placed.

After we had more than 70,000 visitors in a day, we expanded the page by, among other things, applying gamification and conducting interviews with parties such as Digital Ocean and HBO-I. National media recognition followed, interview in the newspaper and even interest from the United States.

Lessons learned

Despite the enormous success, the bear hunt map was a hype; temporary in nature. With the reopening of the elementary schools, the app was used less and less, which ultimately meant the end of the bear hunt map. As students, Klaas and I learned a lot from this project.

If you want to know more about the bear hunt map, you can read the (dutch) article here.