The Goosechase activity took place in the Thomas Van Der Hammen Forest Reserve and especially around the Jorge Piñeros Corpas Medicinal Garden
In November 2024, the team at Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences (Finland) welcomed the BeGlobal project partners in Helsinki for an intensive training session on innovative pedagogies, internationalisation at home and digital tools for teaching global citizenship (watch the video of our training week). From that meeting emerged the drive to bring what we had learned back to Bogotá as a situated adaptation tailored to the reality of Colombian students in the health sciences.
A situated experience on the green campus
On 19 November 2025, first and second semester students from the School of Medicine at Fundación Universitaria Juan N. Corpas enjoyed a global experience through Goosechase, a gamification platform based on interactive scavenger hunts.
The activity, embedded in the courses Language, Grammar and Writing 1/2, took place entirely in the green spaces of the Suba campus, within the Thomas Van Der Hammen Forest Reserve, and especially around the Jorge Piñeros Corpas Medicinal Garden, awarded an honorary mention as World University Heritage by the International Bureau of Cultural Capitals.
Participant observation and active learning
Following the participant observation model explored during the Helsinki training, the activity brought together twenty students organised into two complementary roles: sixteen participants distributed across four teams led by their own peers, and four students in charge of documenting the process through photography and video (watch the video of this activity, produced by students).
The lecturer accompanied the exercise as a guide and facilitator, observing group interaction and problem-solving strategies. The missions designed in Goosechase combined linguistic challenges, exploration of the medicinal garden and audiovisual production, weaving the course content together with the global dimension of medical training.
Results and lessons learned
The experience revealed three significant achievements. First, the transformation of the university space into a living learning environment, where the campus’s natural heritage became an active pedagogical resource. Second, the strengthening of collaborative work and student leadership, by entrusting team coordination to the students themselves. Third, the consolidation of transversal competences (communication, observation, situated writing and teamwork) that resonate directly with the Sustainable Development Goals and with the Pedagogy for Global Citizenship framework developed by BeGlobal.
A commitment to internationalisation at home
This activity shows that internationalisation at home does not require physical mobility to be transformative. When the learning gained through international networks — such as the Helsinki training — is translated into context-aware practices, the classroom becomes permeable to the world. Goosechase on the green campus is, ultimately, a small but powerful example of what BeGlobal seeks: teachers and students who think globally and act locally, with creativity and commitment.
By: Ivonne Buitrago Gutiérrez.
