Tag: Community Story

/ Eric Schudiske /

Teaching Geocaching and a Lackey to Complete a 5/5

Editor’s note: Lackeys often attend geocaching events of special significance and events that help showcase geocaching to new audiences. Jessie Perkins, Foxfire, the Community Relations Lead for Groundspeak traveled to North Carolina to attend a science teachers conference where she spoke to attendees about geocaching. This is her report.

By Jessie Perkins

Groundspeak has been working hard to connect with teachers and find out how we can help bring geocaching into the classroom. As part of this initiative, I had the privilege to join some local cachers for the North Carolina Science Teachers Association Conference (NCSTAC) early this month. This was the first Science Teachers Conference that Groundspeak has attended. I manned the Geocaching.com booth and was able to talk to teachers who are considering developing geocaching-related lesson plans as well as those who have already started using geocaching in the classroom.

Jessie (third from right) with local geocachers

Many teachers in the latter group have placed (unlisted) geocaches on their school grounds and used them to encourage cross-curricular learning. One teacher told me about a lesson that encompasses the Science and Physical Education disciplines. They post clipboards around the school and input the coordinates into GPS devices. Students navigate to each clipboard using a GPS device and answer the question written there. It may be, “What kind of tree is this?” or “What kind of bird made this nest?” Each time the kids go out the destination coordinates and questions on the clipboards change.

The reason I went to North Carolina was because of the efforts of a geocacher and teacher by the username of markcase. Mark is a North Carolina science teacher and avid geocacher. He had quite a weekend between presenting on geocaching at the conference and ensuring that I would have a full day of North Carolina caching.  Once he heard that I enjoy EarthCaches, I had not done a 5/5 and I had never been to North Carolina, he couldn’t wait to show me around.

His post-conference plans started with a meet and greet event, where I got to know a few cachers who were either from the area or there visiting, including _Norah_, _c3_, Check-Cacher, Gizmo’s Keepers and ncbiscuit. The next day started bright and early. I met up with markcase, Ranger fox, Night-Ranger, Diefenbaker and Okie.Bug. I would spend the next 13 hours geocaching with this group around the Greensboro area. We found 18 caches that day including a number of EarthCaches, Traditional Caches, one Multi-Cache and my first difficulty 5, terrain 5.

The 5/5 had to have been one of the most rewarding caches that I have found, “bald mnt challenge” (GC15CC2). It was at the top of a large, steep hill. After scrambling over boulders to reach the top, we were able to catch our breath, admire the view, and sign the log. We had fun trying to think of all the firsts from my trip so I could write them in my log. It went a little something like this: “First time in North Carolina, first 5/5, first Multi-Cache, and first time having North Carolina BBQ and first time at an education conference talking about teaching geocaching in the classroom… and the list goes on.”

I was able to meet some wonderful people, make new friends, got to know the real meaning of southern hospitality and add new adventures to my list of firsts. In the end, I can’t wait until I get the chance to go back to North Carolina.

If you are interested in learning how teachers have been incorporating geocaching in the classroom and perhaps borrowing some of their ideas for your own class or youth program, please visit our Education Forums.

/ Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching.com Co-Founder Celebrates Ten Years of Geo-Love

Bryan, Hydee, Nicolas and Dylan

Some people find much more than just cache containers when they’re introduced to geocaching. Geocachers may discover parks they never knew existed, the hidden history of their community or even the sting of stepping in poison ivy. But some geocachers wander into something else. They’re lucky enough to find the person they’ll marry.

It happens. It happened to one of the founders of Geocaching.com. Bryan Roth attended a geocaching event ten years ago today. Fellow founder Jeremy Irish encouraged Bryan to attend.

Bryan says, “This was the first of 41 total geocaching events that I’ve attended so far. Jeremy had suggested that I attend and I figured it’d be a great opportunity to meet some members of the local geocaching community. I really didn’t know what to expect but, of course, that day has changed my life forever.”

What happened next may have been one of first cases of geo-love.  The event’s name was innocent enough. It was called Washington Geocaching Potluck & Quilting Bee.

Event in 2001 where Bryan and Hydee met (Hydee far left of picture)

Bryan’s “will attend” log read, “I will be there (with chocolates).” Bryan says he wasn’t fishing for love with those chocolates, “Not at all.  At the time, I don’t think I was even looking for a date. I was only thinking about meeting geocachers and getting more involved with the local community.”

But Bryan says he soon met a geocacher named Hydee and her son Dylan. He remembers his first thought, “Yeah [my first thought was] – she looks like trouble.  I was right, of course.  ;)”

She later told Bryan the chocolates helped cement her intuitions that he was the right person for her. She loves chocolate.

Jon Stanley, Moun10Bike, hosted the event where Hydee and Bryan first met. Jon says, “That event is actually where I first met Bryan. I didn’t know that the spark had been lit at that time, but I soon found out. Hydee and her friend CameraThyme kept referring to “AFM,” which stood for “Action Figure Man.” After a while I discovered that this was their code name for Bryan. Then all became clear!”

The Roth's 10 Year Anniversary geocoin

Hydee’s friend CameraThyme also played a key role. Bryan says, “Thanks to CameraThyme for letting me know that Heidi was single.”

Bryan and Hydee would marry. Today they’re co -hosting a “10 Years Since They Met!” event in the Seattle area with Moun10Bike and Avroair. Nearly a hundred people are expected to attend.

Bryan says, “I feel so fortunate to have met Hydee and adopted Dylan. Our youngest son Nicholas is almost six and I can’t believe what a wonderful ten years it has been for all of us. A really cool aspect of it is that many of the people at the event ten years ago will be there today, so it’s really an anniversary for all of us. We’ve built some wonderful friendships along the way and we have geocaching to thank for it.”

Jon says Bryan and Hydee are lucky, geo-love can be a rare commodity, “I attend a fair amount of events, though, and while I’ve heard of people meeting through them, Bryan and Hydee are the only ones I personally can name who linked up as the result of an event, let alone stayed together happily for ten years!”

Still want more love? Watch this video about others who met through geocaching.

[vsw id=”aqFJvj22WBU” source=”youtube” width=”425″ height=”344″ autoplay=”no”]

/ Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching Alter Egos: TheVillains!

TheVillains

Some people pack a GPS device or smartphone, a pen and some gear to hit the geocaching trail. Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious who geocache under the team name TheVillains also pack mustaches, sunglasses, and comic books. Their geocaching alter ego is all about spreading the joy of evil geocaching. Their logs and cache pages are populated with quotes like this, “Horrible Hunting…. Muhahahahahahaha!!!!”

When asked by Geocaching.com “How evil is your evil geocaching?” Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious simply replied, “Very.”

TheVillains humble beginnings

TheVillains beginnings are humble enough. They started geocaching in February of this year. Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious write, “Well it all started with comic books. We wanted to leave a trademark item and we decided that comic books were awesome and so were the villains in them. So we decided to become villains ourselves with awesome disguises and take over the world of geocaching.”

Like all great comic book villains, the geocaching team has a simple, yet universal villain goal. They say, “Our goal is to dominate the world of geocaching by finding every single geocache in the world!!!! So one day your own geocache will be dominated by TheVillains!!!!! BEWARE!!!!! We also leave every geocache with our calling card and a villainous comic book (if it fits).”

They’ve definitely left a mustachioed mark on their geocaching community. They write, “We get a few emails from other geocachers after finding their ‘difficult’ geocaches, challenging us to find others. We also have quite a fan base, and get photos of people who have found our own geocaches… or not… posing as if they had a cool mustache like our own.”

TheVillains cache page log photos

With their alter egos TheVillains injected some… well… theatrical, villainous flare into the Southern California geocaching scene. They even square off against arch enemies.

Mr. and Mrs. Mysterious write, “We published our most well know geocache Mrs. Mysterious’s Mustaches (GC316RZ) where there is a series of false geocaches that when you find them, they have similar logos to our own, but the wrong mustache! We got a message from a fellow geocacher saying that she recently published a cache nearby and it was just found by our arch nemesis’s BBsquared and Spoons1 and that they are probably on their way to ours to be the FTF right now!”

It’s at this point where the evil geocaching duo sprang into action. They say, “So we put on our disguises and jumped in the car and drove over. Sure enough, there they were crawling under bushes and looking in trees trying to find our cache. We rolled down the window, they recognized us obviously, and we gave them a few foreboding hints leading them in the wrong direction and drove off with a Muhahahahahaha!!! It took them over an hour to find it.”

TheVillains, the next generation

BBsquared logged the cache and wrote, “We hopped like bunnies, searched in trees, TheVillains stopped by and laughed at me. We searched and looked and laughed, our clothes are pretty dirty but Spoons1 and I weren’t leaving until we logged a smiley. T4T [thanks for the] very devious and horrible $ – Muhahahahahahahahahahahahaha.” He finished by saying, “Happy – errrr I mean Horrible hunting.”

TheVillains are still in their first year of geocaching, they’re gaining notoriety and a following. The photo to the left was fresh crops of villains was recently uploaded on their Facebook page.

Even TheVillains mustaches are open to change. “We have been through a plethora of mustaches we recently grew these new handle bar ones, what do think? But we are always looking for new styles. But as far as costume changes go, we are sticking with the glasses and ‘stashes as our trademark logo shows.”

TheVillains at a night-cache

If you’re thinking about a career in evil geocaching, or creating an alter ego in your geocaching community, TheVillians have advice. “We can always use more henchmen…. But really, just be creative. No one likes finding lame geocaches, try to make everything you do interesting and create a theme, maybe one day you can be as cool as us….. not…..”

Then they signed their email with their trademark sign off, “Horrible Hunting,- TheVillains”

 

/ Eric Schudiske /

Geocaching Vlogs and Online Videos – The New Horizon of Caching Media Part II

[Editor’s Note: Make sure to obtain cache owner permission when featuring a specific cache and spoilers. Include a spoiler warning if a spoiler is absolutely necessary.]

Geocaching video blogs (vlogs), as well as YouTube-based video series, have become hugely popular in the geocaching community. The Geocaching.com YouTube channel receives thousands of viewers each day and the Geocaching.com videos have been viewed nearly three million times so far. Vlogs and other videos created by the community showcase the diversity, creativity and intelligence found in the geocaching world.

Vlogging has become an exciting way to share geocaching experiences. We now invite you to enjoy Part II of the “Geocaching Vlogs and Online Videos” blog post. This post introduces you to three popular English-language geocaching vlogs and their vloggers. Part I, which featured geocaching vlogs from around the world, can be found here.

Vlogger Joshua Johnson

Mayberryman, or Joshua Johnson, is an American geocaching vlogger out of Minnesota, USA. With more than 40,000 views on his site, Joshua is capturing the attention of geocachers and non-geocachers around the world. According to the vlogger, “the beauty of online video is that it is global, so I think it is fun for people to see geocaching in different places of the world.”

Joshua spends much of his free time recording his caching adventures and posting them on his vlog for all to see. He says his vlog has enabled him to “connect with cachers all over the world through this medium.  An example of this is a video collaboration video where a cacher named Captain Hardy from Norway shot a video of him sending the Travel Bug my way.”

Joshua says one of the goals of his is videos, “is to make the viewer feel like they are caching along with us.” Joshua also hopes to use his vlog to “share with the world the incredible hobby/sport that is geocaching… to introduce others to the hobby through the videos.”

Vlogger Headhardhat

Headhardhat, or Andrew Smith, another popular English language vlogger. Andrew has posted videos on YouTube for years. He has more than 60 videos online and has had more than 370,000 hits to his YouTube site. He sees his vlog as a “teaching tool to educate geocachers from all levels of expertise.” Andrew has found that creating a vlog has been beneficial to his personal geocaching experiences as well as the community’s.

He says, “I have heard everything from thanks for planting the seed to go out geocaching, to making things smoother for others as they ventured out, to saving several marriages and bringing families together.” Andrew’s vlog has connected him to people all over the world. According to the vlogger, these connections make geocaching “that much more fun because I get to share my experiences with others.”

Joshua and Andrew all showcase geocaching in the English language. They are among a more and more geocachers flipping on the video camera and sharing their adventures, tips and geocaching tricks online.

You can start sharing your experiences right now. Share your videos, pics and geocaching expertise (or geocaching questions) on the Geocaching.com Facebook page.

 

/ Adela B /

Geocaching Finds Its Way To the Classroom

By: Kara Bonilla

West Mercer Elementary Students geocaching

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.

A "GEO-metry" lesson plan from Ellis Reyes

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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