Tag: Trackables

/ Eric Schudiske /

Nottingham to Nottingham Travel Bug Race

Trackable Week presents a new story Monday through Friday this week about creative ways to experience Trackables. Geocaching.com Trackables allow people to tag and track an item from geocache to geocache. Trackables typically come in three varieties, Geocoins, Travel Bugs® or Promotional Trackables like the Find the Gecko, Geico campaign. (Watch a video on Travel Bugs)

See the bottom of this article for a place a share your Trackable stories, links to other Trackable stories and a limited time special offer for 30% of individual orders of Travel Bugs this week only (US costumers only). Check out Monday’s installment for Trackable Week:

Nottingham to Nottingham Travel Bug Race

 

By Kelly Ranck

The geocaching community is becoming larger every day, but the global community is using geocaching to make our world increasingly smaller.

EyeD1OT 4th2, U.S. Travel Bug competitor

Take the Travel Bug, for example. Grab a small item, attach it to a Trackable keychain, assign it a destination and watch it travel across the globe as it is passed from geocacher to geocacher, most of whom are strangers to one another.

As a way of bringing the geocaching community ever closer, Jacaru and Balrgn have created a Travel Bug race. The race challenges cachers to send Travel Bugs between Nottingham, United Kingdom and Nottingham, New Hampshire, United States. They organized a race which began over the weekend. It involves more than 90 Travel Bugs.

According to Jacaru, the originator of the race, “It came about as I had been thinking that it would be good to organize a race between Nottingham here in the UK and another one abroad. We could then become the geocaching equivalent of twin towns.”

Jacaru emailed a few geocachers in the Nottingham, U.S. area with his idea. Balrgn responded that he would gladly like to help out. Both geocachers worked with local reviewers to establish a Travel Bug hotel cache in each location.

Cameron Tiede2, UK Travel Bug competitor

These Travel Bug hotel caches are the starting and finishing points for the race. They then started contacting local geocachers and asking whether they would like to enter a TB into the race. According to Jacaru, “Word soon got round and I had quite a few locals wanting to participate. The same happened over in New Hampshire.” By race day, they expect about 30 entrants from both locations.

The organizers have created a Nottingham to Nottingham Travel Bug race blog where, once the launch promotional events finish and the two hotels go live, owners will be able to track their Travel Bugs as they race across the globe.

“Entrants can go and find the hotel as a normal cache and pick up a bug. However, they cannot pick up their own bug,” says Jacaru. “The first bug to arrive at the UK hotel, and vice versa will win its owner a new specially designed Geocoin, only two of these coins have been made.”

Nottingham, New Hampshire, U.S.
Notthingham, UK

For more information, Jacaru and Balrgn have also created a Facebook page, where geocachers will receive weekly updates on the race.

“This is turning into an exciting race that has really taken shape now and inspired people to join in,” says Jacaru.

This is just one of the many examples of the ways in which geocachers are working to creatively build the geocaching community and promote involvement, with a hint of friendly competition.

Quick tip alert: If you are racing several bugs at once, check out this helpful hint in our Knowledge Books. It gives you a code so that you can view the status of all of your TravelBugs on the same page.

Click on the image for a 30% savings on orders of Travel Bugs (U.S. customers only)
Additional Trackable Stories:

Watch a soldier receive a Travel Bug tattoo.

Read about a Travel Bug Rescue program.

Share your Trackable stories

 

 

/ 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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/ Eric Schudiske /

A Baldwin Attraction (Otago) GCRZ51 GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK –

"A Baldwin Attraction (Otago)"

“A Baldwin Attraction (Otago)” (GCRZ51) takes geocachers to a world record setting street on New Zealand’s South Island.

Baldwin street in Dunedin holds the distinction of being named the World’s Steepest Street. A sign proclaims the Guinness Book of Records™ title.

Geocachers hoping to log “A Baldwin Attraction (Otago)” are encouraged to park their car at the bottom of the hill and then walk up the harrowing incline.

It is a difficulty one, terrain two cache. It was placed in 2006 by GSVNoFixedAbode and has rewarded more than 200 geocachers with smileys. The cache page suggests discretion or the cover of night when searching for this micro cache. The cache owner writes, “As this is a popular and well-populated area a reasonable degree of stealth is required.”

A World Record Street

One cacher from Switzerland who logged this cache wrote, “A really cool place! We enjoyed the walk up the steepest street of the world. Good to know, that it can’t get any worse… T4TC”

Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the world.Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on our blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.

 

 

 

/ Eric Schudiske /

Refer a Friend – Help Kids Learn about GPS

Karla

This is Karla. She is a student at a low income elementary school in Texas and a member of the after-school technology club, Tech-Click.

In 2009, Groundspeak was able to provide three GPS devices to Karla’s club through DonorsChoose.org. DonorsChoose.org is an online charity that connects teachers with donors to fulfill classroom needs.

These three GPS devices allowed Karla and others in her club to learn about latitude, longitude, spatial concepts and more. Karla sent us this letter to thank us for the donation:

Now, you can help others like Karla learn about GPS technology simply by telling people about geocaching. From June 1- 30, 2011, for each new member that you refer to Geocaching.com, we’ll donate $1 to DonorsChoose.org.

How it works:

  1. You introduce someone new to geocaching. You can take them out on the trail with you, send them our new “tell a friend” email, write a blog or simply shout about it from the rooftops.
  2. The person that you introduced to geocaching signs up for an account (Basic or Premium) between June 1 and June 30 and fills out the “referred by” field on the account creation page. (Make sure to give them your Geocaching.com username so that they can fill out this field.)
  3. He or she logs at least one geocache between June 1 and June 30.
  4. We give US $1 to GPS-related projects on DonorsChoose.org.

 

The more people you refer, the more money we can donate to classrooms in need, up to a total of $10,000 USD!

Teach your friends about geocaching and help provide students like Karla with the tools they need to have engaging learning experiences.

We will be providing regular updates on the number of referrals here on Latitude 47 and on Facebook. Thank you for helping!

We also wish our brother was as nice as you.

Cheers,

The Groundspeak Lackeys

 

 

/ Eric Schudiske /

An Open Letter to Groundspeak – from an 11-Year-Old Geocacher

Evan's letter to Groundspeak

The world of an 11-year-old is a complex ecosystem of school, sports, family and play. In 2011, play as a kid seems to only involve the pollicis brevis and abductor pollicis longus muscle groups. Those are the muscles that move our thumbs, as in playing video games.

But one 11-year-old is using his thumbs for something else. Evan works the buttons on a GPS device to hunt geocaches. He also recently picked up a pen and wrote a letter to Groundspeak.

The fifth grader is an avid geocacher. Evan writes, “Me and my dad go caching a lot.” He describes geocaching as, “fun-ga-cational.”

Here’s why. Evan says, “[Geocaching is fun-ga-cational] because first of all it helps with math, (working with miles and feet). Second of all because it helps with geography, maps and sometimes social studies, working with latitude and longitude, maps and sometimes you learn about the area around a person. And third of all because it is super fun.”

Well, thank you Evan. We work hard to make sure geocaching is as super fun as possible.

This fifth grader’s letter is peppered with ideas for geocaching and questions for Groundspeak. We thought we’d share a few of Evan’s questions.

Where did you get the idea for geocoins?

Geocoins, including a Moun10bike coin

Geocoins are the creation of Jon Stanley, alias Moun10bike. He now works at Groundspeak as a Lackey. We even did a video with Jon about the invention of geocoins. He placed the first coin on September 30, 2001. Did you know, Moun10bike has thousands of geocoins in his personal collection? It’s true. He has books and books of geocoins.

Can you put locks on geocaches?

Yes, if an answer or a key you discover unlocks the cache. Geocacher Richard Garriott has a lock on his cache called, “Necropolis of Britannia Manor III.” We did a video about this spooky cache. The clues you find on this puzzle cache give you the combination for the lock. You can watch a story about the cache here.

Can one put more A.P.E. caches out?

Evan's letter to Groundspeak

Nope. There’s only a couple A.P.E. caches left in the world. In 2001, fourteen geocaches were placed as the movie Planet of the Apes hit theaters. Each cache represented a fictional story in which scientists revealed an Alternative Primate Evolution. These caches were made using specially marked ammo containers. There’s one A.P.E. cache left near Groundspeak H.Q. and one still active in Brazil.

Will you ever branch out and make multiple HQ caches?

Seems unlikely. There’s only one H.Q. We’re located in Seattle, Washington. You’re always welcome to visit. Just check out our cache page.

Thanks for writing Evan. I hope this helped! And we’ll see what we can do about your suggestions. We like the idea of miniature Signal and Lackey figurines.  But we’re not sure Geocaching will ever be an Olympic sport. Who knows though? Thanks again.

Happy Caching,

Your friends are H.Q.