Math Geeks Unite...How GPS works

This video does a beautiful job of illustrating how GPS works, especially from a mathematical perspective. What a great way to teach students or yourself!

Geocaching and Education, part 9 - School Safety

This is post #9 in a series of free resources for educators interested in using geocaching in education and other community groups like scouts or camps. The material is pulled directly from Educaching GPS Based Curriculum for Teachers. If interested in more resources, check out www.educaching.com.

Sincerely,

Jason Hubbard, Author

A Word about School Safety

      I once heard a story about a schoolyard in England being flooded with police cars, caution tape, and a bomb squad. What looked like a plastic pipe bomb was found hidden in a tree on campus. Could what looked potentially dangerous actually have been just a harmless geocache? It was in fact a geocache. This story was told to me while having a conversation with my principal. When I approached him about hiding containers on school grounds, his first concern was (and rightly so) avoiding unnecessary suspicion and promoting student safety. In this day and age, this is timely advice to consider. 

      Be sure you secure your building administrator’s permission regarding the hiding of any containers on the school grounds. When speaking with the principal, be very specific about what types of containers you will be using, and attach labels in case an outsider finds a container by mistake. The last thing you want or need is for someone in the community to be alarmed by finding a mysterious container while walking on school property. You can avoid this by being straightforward with the school staff and maybe even local police so that there are no surprises about what you are hiding. Also, it is a good idea to be straightforward with your students that you and only you have permission to hide containers at school. Many students might be excited about the concept and may try to hide their own containers on school grounds. This is not safe or acceptable, and the students need to know that you will be doing all the placement of educaches.

Geocaching + Prezi

As an educator and a presenter, I have grown to love prezi. If you are unfamiliar, you need to become familiar! In a nutshell, it is an online software application to create and share "zoomable" creative presentations. However, it is a completely different and creative take on the old drab and boring slideshow approach. Here's an analogy: Powerpoint is to linear presentation as Prezi is to infinite zooming canvas. I found this prezi on Geocaching and just had to share. It will give you a great idea as to how a prezi looks and feels, and it is a great teaching tool for students and adults alike when it comes to the great sport of caching!
Enjoy,
Jason and the Educaching Team

An introduction to Geocaching on Prezi

Geocaching and Education, part 8 - Great Hiding Spots

This is post #8 in a series of free resources for educators interested in using geocaching in education and other community groups like scouts or camps. The material is pulled directly from Educaching GPS Based Curriculum for Teachers. If interested in more resources, check out www.educaching.com.

Sincerely,

Jason and The Educaching Team

Great Hiding Spots

      Before hiding anything on your school grounds or campus, it is a good idea to take a google map printout or Sketch the layout of your school campus on a sheet of paper. It is easy for me to forget hiding spots a few days later, but when I see them on a hand drawn map, it usually jogs my memory. Once you have a map, walk around and observe your area including buildings, fields, playgrounds, trees, shrubs, signs, and other pertinent landmarks. Take note of large hiding areas first. This will be helpful later on if you want to do multiple hunts one day...different hunting areas (with at least 10-20 hiding spots each) can provide variety for a group that you want to take out at different points throughout the year.

      Now, mark or highlight the places on your map that would make the best hiding spots for items. Pretend you are hosting an Easter Egg hunt. Where would the best spots be for your students? You want the items to be hidden, but you don’t want them impossible to find. Never bury something. Rather, conceal it with mulch, stones, etc. to “camouflage” it from view. Never cause a student to climb to find something.  

Here are a few ideas of some good hiding spots:

Trees – especially in the knots, holes, or forks where branches spread out, but do not make them climb for it

Shrubs – at the base or nearby…maybe you can use a little mulch to help camouflage something at the base of a shrub

Buildings – anywhere along the perimeter of your school building would be an appropriate place

Landmarks – school signs, playgrounds, flagpoles or other “significant” spots on your school campus

Aligning to Technology Standards

Hello All,
Here are some of the ISTE standards that align while using GPS technology with students. I have highlighted specific strands that definitely fit. This resource should be helpful for those who want to make sure you are teaching technology standards while caching. It should also prove useful if you need to prove the validity of a program or if you are trying to obtain a tech. grant for using GPS.
Cheers,
Jason and the Educaching Team

Open publication - Free publishing - More common core

Geocaching and Education, part 7 - Student Grouping

This is post #7 in a series of free resources for educators interested in using geocaching in education and other community groups like scouts or camps. The material is pulled directly from Educaching GPS Based Curriculum for Teachers. If interested in more resources, check out www.educaching.com.

Sincerely,

Jason Hubbard, Author

Teamwork is a vital part of Educaching. Groups of two to four students are ideal for success. It is a good idea to assign roles to each individual group member to keep each student focused and responsible for specific tasks. Here are some ideas for individual roles within the groups:

• Navigator – This student will be in charge of the GPS receiver and navigating the group to their destinations.
• Scribe – This student will be responsible for writing down any information necessary like waypoints, clues, answers to questions, notes, etc. If you use the field sheets (included in the lessons), every student can write on their own, or the scribe can be responsible for one field sheet for the whole group.
• Reader – The job of the reader is to read any information (clues, articles, directions, etc.) found in a cache.
• Photographer (optional, but recommended) – If you have access to digital cameras, this student can take pictures of the group in action and take snapshots of their findings. For example, the students might greatly benefit in a tree-related hunt from taking pictures of their tree, leaf samples, and bark type for reference and for displaying in a presentation when they return to the classroom. Photographs can also be used to explain to parents, other teachers, and the community just what it is you are doing in Educaching!
• Illustrator – This role may be assigned to a student for several lessons that require drawing of any pictures or figures on the hunt. This role can be assigned in place of a photographer if you choose not to use cameras. 

You can utilize all these roles, some of them, or come up with your own, but make sure students rotate through these roles frequently so that all students can have exposure to the GPS units.

Geocaching and Education, part 6 - Container Ideas

This is post #6 in a series of free resources for educators interested in using geocaching in education and other community groups like scouts or camps. The material is pulled directly from Educaching GPS Based Curriculum for Teachers. If interested in more resources, check out www.educaching.com.

Sincerely,

Jason Hubbard, Author

        When hiding geocaches for your students, you will need good cache containers. The most important thing about the container is that you do not want it to be easily noticed. This is for the sake of the students (so it is not too easy for them to find), but you also do not want a non-student finding it and thinking it is garbage or tampering with it in any way, ruining the experience for your students. A container should be fairly small and somewhat camouflaged. It can be camouflaged by its surroundings (i.e. shrubs, trees, bark, mulch, and so on) or, you can use camouflage (green or otherwise) tape to wrap around smaller containers to make them look more natural, like they “fit in” with the surrounding environment. I have also used various brown and green camouflage spray paints (around $5 per can or less). You can take all your containers outside, put them on a sheet of cardboard, and spray them all at the same time. They may need repainted every few years, as the paint tends to wear off with handling. Listed here are a few ideas of what you can use to hide items.

• Plastic film canisters – Yes, they still have these around! Go to your nearest photo lab or grocery store photo counter and simply tell them you are an educator and need these for a project. They will most likely give you a bagful! Amazingly, people are still using 35mm film out there. 
• Waterproof match container – These can be bought at little cost in the camping section of many stores and are perfect for hiding tiny, rolled up notes.
• Plastic zip-style baggies – These, of course, are very affordable, waterproof, and can be reused. Be careful that there is something heavy enough in them that they won’t blow away!
• Plastic food containers with lids – Coming in all shapes and sizes, these containers might be just what you need for hiding a variety of items. These containers can be easily painted or camo-taped.
• Plastic plumbing pipes with caps – These provide a capsule-like container for storing almost any item and can be different diameters in size. They can be cut at any length if you or someone you know is handy enough. They can be made economically with materials bought at most hardware and Do-It-Yourself stores. SAFETY NOTE: Think first...would this look too much like an "unsafe" container and draw suspicion? If so, maybe it could use a label that says it is part of an educational scavenger hunt. Otherwise, avoid this type of container.
• Hide-A-Key containers – For an interesting twist, there are some great “fake rock” containers on the market that hide something small, like a key. This could get pricy to buy several, but it would be fun to have one or two and see what the students do when they stumble upon it!
• Ammo Boxes – If you have a military surplus store nearby, you might want to see if they have ammo boxes. These can hold larger items, lock down to keep moisture out, and are already painted to blend in. Many hunting/fishing/camping stores have plastic versions of these.
• Mint and Gum Containers – Look for plastic mint and gum containers that would be able to hide small messages, then paint them or wrap them in camouflage tape.

Use your imagination to come up with more container ideas. Feel free to post your ideas here to share with others.