Dr. Alice Christie

Dr. Christie's GPS and Geocaching Guide for Educators



GPS and Geocaching for Educators

I chose to review the section of Dr. Alice Christie's site on GPS and Geocaching for Educators. I am fairly familiar with the GPS system, but have never had any geocaching experiences. GPS stands for Global Positioning System. The system is a 12 billion dollar system of 24 satellites that circle our globe. These satellites are maintained by the U.S. Department of Defense. We can purchase relatively inexpensive GPS receivers that communicate with these satellites. The receivers give us latitude and longitude coordinates, and keep track of our paths.

GPS Receiver

Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game using GPS receivers to locate cache locations. Once you find the cache locations you can log your visit to the cache, take an item from the cache box, and leave a cache treasure for someone else. If you would like to create a geocache location, you first need to get a container, a log book, treasures for hiding, and a GPS receiver. Containers should be waterproof, such as a jar, tupperware container, or ammo box. You must hide your cache on public property in a place you can visit often. Be sure it blends with the environment, and record the coordinates of the cache. Be sure to log the information online so that other geocachers know where to look for your cache. If you are interested in hunting cache or hiding cache you can log it at the official website.

Geocaching.com

I feel that children would really enjoy Geocaching. It seems to be the modern day version of a scavenger hunt. Children could be taught science concepts with lessons about how the GPS system works, and environmental concepts with hiding cache. They could be taught geography skills, teaching latitude and longitude. If the teacher makes their own cache spots they can even involve some of the class in choosing the hiding spots. The cache found by students can contain any content that the teacher chooses to emphasize.