Geocaching: A High Tech Treasure Hunt

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/edgoodwin/ 

This previous summer, my family and I got into Geocaching, a type of treasure hunt except instead of using a map to find the "treasure", you use your GPS. It was a great way for our family to bond and we had a lot of fun doing it. There are over a million Geocaches across the world and they increase everyday. Anyone can make a cache!

I started to think about how you could incorporate Geocaching into a classroom and realized the possibilities are endless! To begin with students would learn about geography, coordinates, longitude, and latitude. They also would gain experience working with technology as they use their GPS to track down their cache. Geocache allows you to use GoogleMaps to spot all the caches close in your area. Once you choose a cache to attack, you then must plug the coordinates into your GPS to begin your journey!

On another level, you could teach a history lesson using Geocaching. Say you want your students to be able to put themselves in the shoes of a famous explorer. Beforehand, you could create several Geocaches within a confined area, such as a park or even within the school boundaries, for the students to discover for themselves! Give the students the coordinates, and send them off. In each cache they find, could be historical information or an activity for them to complete before moving on to the next cache. You could even make it a competition, seeing which team could make it to all of the caches first!

Another option would be to have the students themselves come up with the caches for each other. They could decide what they wanted to leave inside their "treasure box" and even choose their location. Once again the students would be learning all about geography in a fun and interactive way.

No matter what you choose to do with Geocaching in your classroom, it is evident that building teamwork would be present. Whether students are creating their own caches or having to find all the caches first, they will have to work together to problem solve.
I would hope that my students would enjoy the experience as much as I enjoyed doing it with my family this past summer and maybe even pass it on to their own families, so they can be apart of the high tech treasure hunt as well!