Geocaching is delightful because of the people who play it — adventure-seekers, makers, parents, astronauts and (sometimes) celebrities. Read their stories.
Geocaching.com is excited about introducing “Geocaching Challenges” in the near future. Enjoy this sneak peek at the innovative new way to experience and share location-based adventures around the world on Geocaching.com. More information will be released in the next days. “Geocaching Challenges” is scheduled to launch on Geocaching.com in the next weeks.
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Groundspeak needs your help acknowledging a geocacher each month that stands out by inspiring other geocachers with their innovation, creative hides and/or logs, respect for the environment, and helpfulness. More than a hundred geocachers submitted outstanding nominees from around the world.
The Geocacher of the Month celebrates geocachers for their contributions. A panel of Lackeys had the difficult task of selecting four of the most outstanding nominees. You can help name one of these nominees the “Geocacher of the Month.”
Each geocacher you see below displays extraordinary geocaching qualities including generosity and inventiveness. Write a comment on this blog post about which of these three geocachers you’d like to see as the first “Geocacher of the Month.” All those not awarded or nominated are encouraged to submit nominations again next month.
Read the testimonials below and leave a comment with your suggestion. Some testimonials have been edited for length.
Nominated by ZeroOne: “When I read about your Geocacher of the Month project, I naturally started thinking who would be the most suitable Finnish cacher for the nomination. It took me a while because the person is so humble, but when it came to me it was obvious: username haksu10.
Haksu10 is extremely devoted to the Finnish geocaching community — I dare to say there’s no one more devoted than him. He has single-handedly created and is constantly developing the geocache.fi site, used by most Finnish geocachers daily.
I don’t know when, but in the middle of maintaining the site haksu10 also seems to find the time to occasionally go geocaching. Last summer it almost cost him his life, though. He was bitten by a poisonous snake and was hospitalized. Luckily he recovered in a few days and was back developing the site. Haksu has already found almost 2000 caches and owns almost a hundred caches. The most special of his caches is probably GC16QCH Haksulandia.. What makes it special, though, is that it is located at haksu10’s yard. According to the description, the cache is equipped with an electric outlet in case you need to charge anything. Call before you arrive (or just ring the doorbell) and haksu10 will make you some coffee.”
Nominated by Joshism: “I am nominating ‘Dale n Barb.’ Dale and Barbara have been very active in geocaching for several years. They have organized or assisted in numerous events with both their Space Coast Geocaching Association and the larger Florida Geocaching Association. I live more than hour’s drive away, but still attend their events; I know many more who drive even farther. They have worked with parks and the geocaching community, including numerous CITO events. They are the owners of “A Cool Cache” (GC15RQB): the most Favorited non-Virtual in the state of Florida. They encourage others to “Take Pride In Your Hide” and live that motto, with thoughtful well-maintained hides that have never disappointed me. They are a huge asset to the Florida geocaching community in every way possible.”
Nominated by kdv, Marcel en Micha (and two others).
kdv writes, “I would like to nominate “De broekies.” They are spending most of their spare time helping the Dutch (and international) geocaching community enjoy their geocaching experiences even more. They run a successful geocaching website (www.globalcaching.eu) and offer a lot of functionality and fun to all its users and guests.
They often give away Geocoins and other stuff to visitors. Plus they often help out other websites too, hosting items that require special technical knowledge, for instance to run a Geocoin race. And I have never even met him in person! Robert is just a great person, and I can honestly not think of anyone more deserving of this title. Actually, Geocacher of the Decade would be even more appropriate!
Marcel en Micha writes,”With this email I would like to nominate Robert of the Broekies for Geocacher of the Month. The reason I would like to nominate him is for his outstanding commitment to the Dutch geocaching community. I think he is a good example of how to make the geocaching community a better place. Every country in the world should have a ‘Robert’.”
A panel of Lackeys will use your comments to help decide the Geocacher of the Month award on August 20, 2011 at the Geocaching Block Party in Seattle, Washington, USA. Each Geocacher of the Month will receive an exclusive special edition ”Geocacher of the Month” Geocoin along with a Geocacher of the Month hat and certificate acknowledging their contributions signed by the founders of Geocaching.com: Jeremy Irish, Bryan Roth and Elias Alvord.
If you know an outstanding geocacher who should be the Geocachers of the Month, send an email to geocacherofthemonth@groundspeak.com.
Every nomination must meet the following requirements. Please include your name, the name of your nominee, their username, at least one picture of the nominee and description (in 500 or fewer words) explaining why he or she deserves to be the Geocacher of the Month. Please inform your nominee that you’ve submitted them for the award. Nominations for the September Geocacher of the Month must be received by September 3rd.
Once we have received all of the nominations, we will choose the top candidates and post them on the blog. You will then get a chance to champion your favorite. Our goal is to involve the entire geocaching community in this process so we might learn from each other.
Share your genius for witty captions in the 26th installment of our Geocaching.com Caption Contest. You could earn a barely coveted prize. What caption would you write? “We’re saving thousands on our around-the-world honeymoon this way!” You can craft a better caption.
Submit your caption by clicking on “Comments” below. Please include your geocaching username in all entries. Then, explore the captions other geocachers have posted.
You can even influence the voting process. “Like” the caption that you think should win. If you think your caption should win, convince your fellow geocachers, your friends and family to “like” your caption. Lackeys vote from the top finalists to decide the winner of the contest.
The winner receives a barely coveted prize from Groundspeak Headquarters. This contest the barely coveted prize is six Cache In Trash Out caption stickers.
26 Lackeys voted to award the winner of the 25th Geocaching.com Caption Contest a barely coveted prize. Click on the image at right to discover the winning caption from the 24th Geocaching.com Caption Contest.
Explore all the past winning captions by checking out all the Geocaching.com Caption Contests.
A sandbox in Canada holds a mystery waiting to be unraveled. The Puzzle Cache, “CSI:Winnipeg – SPLASH!” (GC1269F) challenges geocachers to take a step into the unpredictable world of a dinosaur detective. Geocachers must watch a video to gather all the clues needed to find the geocache.
There are less than 30 words in the cache description. It simply states, “A crime has been committed. Can you solve it? Visit this link to see the clue to finding the cache. No lizards were harmed in the making of this movie.”
The movie runs seven minutes. It time well worth the investment for those who logged a smiley on the cache. One log reads, “This one definitely gets added to my favorites list. Thanks for the very clever cache.”
Lizardo placed the difficulty 2.5, terrain two geocache in 2007. It’s already accumulated more than 20 Geocaching.com Favorite Points.
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the world. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.
By: Kara Bonilla
Teachers for all grade levels have begun to use the location-based treasure hunting adventure of geocaching as a teaching tool. Teachers say students learning through geocaching enjoy benefits far beyond learning outside of a classroom setting; geocaching makes learning more enjoyable and creates unforgettable learning opportunities for students.
Ellis Reyes, a fifth grade teacher at West Mercer Elementary in Washington, USA, has been using geocaching in the classroom for the past two years. He integrates the activity into several subjects.
Ellis hides different types of geocaches for his students to find on campus and in nearby local parks. One of his favorite ways to utilize geocaching involves using multi-step puzzle caches to teach math. Ellis calls this “GEO-metry Caching.”
A lesson involving geocaching in Ellis’s classroom tasks students to use several sets of skills, especially problem solving and advanced math skills.
Ellis says the students are excited to explore geocaching in school, “The kids love using geocaching to learn. It’s about solving puzzles and creative thinking, and getting out of the classroom, what’s better than that?”
With other subjects, such as language arts, Trackables come in handy for Ellis’ class. The students drop their own Trackables in geocaches close to school. They then follow each Trackable’s movements as a class. Ellis has each student create a background story for their personal Trackable. When the Trackable makes a stop, Ellis has his students add more to the story. Soon, the students develop a narrative about the Trackables journey.
Students develop the required skills in the curriculum and learn critical thinking and spatial concepts with the combination of geocaching and additional lesson planning.
Fourth grade teacher Eva La Mar has had a portion of her classes dedicated to teaching geocaching for the past eight years. At Riverbend Elementary in Oregon, USA, Eva teaches the various tools students need to go geocaching, including directional knowledge, the concepts of latitude and longitude and how GPS signals work.
“I love the sport, the exercise, the thinking that is involved. Seeing students motivated and connecting with learning is what education is all about. This is real-life learning.”
Eva also incorporates geocaching into other fourth grade studies. Geology being a fourth grade topic, EarthCaches fit perfectly into her lesson plan. Through EarthCaching and other variations of geocaching, studying the Oregon Trail becomes very real to students. The geocaches students find as a class show the many stops along the trail, helping them understand the concept of “trail-blazing.” Eva’s students love geocaching so much, she says, that most of them have turned geocaching into a family affair. This last year, Eva held a geocaching field trip that both students and parents attended.
Use of geocaching as a teaching tool has become very popular. There are already books and web pages dedicated to geocaching and education, making it easy for teachers to integrate geocaching into their classrooms.
Groundspeak is actively working on a project to create easier ways for all teachers to use geocaching in their classrooms and to share their experiences and work with other educators. There’s even a geocaching guidebook for teachers.
Watch this video of students learning through geocaching:
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