Teaching Content with Geocaching

 A few months ago I had the opportunity to go to a Tech Expo where I learned about geocaching. Geocaching is the technological equivalent of hide-and-seek! It is an outdoor activity where participants use GPS devices or mobile devices to hide and find containers called "geocaches" or "caches" at specific locations marked by the container's coordinates (Fornasini et al., 2020). As a participant at the Expo, I was able to try geocaching with my cell phone in the building! I must admit it was a fun activity and I can see why people love it.

(Open Clipart, n.d.)

After the Expo, I started thinking about how can I adapt geocaching for work and is anyone in either school where I work already doing it? Geocaching in education – called Educaching – is a way to engage students in authentic, real-world application of skills and technology (Bragg, 2014). I inquired in both schools where I work to see if anyone was already using educaching and one teacher sent me a sketch of what he did to integrate geocaching with physical education. That idea got me thinking about how to integrate geocaching into academics and I spent some time investigating how to incorporate geocaching in elementary classrooms. 

One fifth-grade teacher wanted to try geocaching with their students but was worried about them leaving campus. We created an activity where students would use geocaching to find different caches on the playground to gather information about different triangle types so they could draw the triangles with chalk. We spent the next couple of weeks creating different hide-and-seek activities that incorporated the apps we intended to use for our geocaching activity. While I worked on the tech skills with students, she worked on the academic side of learning how to measure sides and angles, identify the different types of triangles, and use measurements and angles to draw triangles. When the big day arrived, we went outside and tried out the angle geocaching idea we created. It was a BIG hit with students! 

Unfortunately, I was too excited and busy to remember to take pictures. However, when I repeat this activity in a few weeks with a different class, I will make sure to take pictures documenting their experience. 

You can watch this video to learn more about geocaching with your students. 

(THNKR, n.d.)

How can you incorporate geocaching in your classroom?

References

Bragg, L. A. (2014). Geocaching: Finding mathematics in a global treasure hunt. Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom, 19(4), 19–14. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/aeipt.214765

Fornasini, S., Dianti, M., Bacchiega, A., Forti, S., & Conforti, D. (2020). Using Geocaching to promote active aging: Qualitative study. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(6), e15339. https://doi.org/10.2196/15339

Open Clipart. (n.d.). Compass rose vector sketch [Clipart]. FreeSVG. https://freesvg.org/compass-rose-vector-sketch

THNKR. (n.d.). Intro to geocaching – find amazing treasures! | Kids teaching kids [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62tjTsf4e4U&ab_channel=THNKR