The cache is not at the posted coordinates, nor do you need to go onto school property to find the cache. Instead, you will need to put your school-related puzzle solving skills to the test in order to find the location of the final, which is located in a nearby public space. The puzzle that you need to solve is located near the bottom of this cache page.
Time to head back to school!!!
Welcome to our "Back to School" puzzle series! With summer finally coming to a close, the kids are heading back to school and so are you if you want to earn this geocaching "smiley".
The City of Camrose has a number of different schools that students can attend to gain an education (in addition to homeschooling). There are a total of 10 different schools available for students between Kindergarden and Grade 12, each belonging to one of three different school divisions: Battle River School Division, Elk Island Catholic Schools, and le Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord (aka the Greater North Central Francophone Education Region). Also located within the City are two post-secondary school options: the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta, as well as the Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute.
In order to find the location for the caches in this Back to School series, you will first need to solve a puzzle to find the final coordinates.
Saint Patrick Catholic School
"St Pats" School first opened around 1960. This school was named after Saint Patrick, also known as the Patron Saint of Ireland, who lived from 387 A.D. to 461 A.D. In addition to being a missionary to the country of Ireland, one of the other things that Saint Patrick is commonly associated with is the date of March 17th (Saint Patrick's Day).
As a school, Sparling School is part of the Elk Island Catholic School division. It offers programming for students from pre-Kindergarden through Grade 4.
Now for the Puzzle Cache!!
The geocache is not at the posted coordinates. You will find the final at N 53° 01.ABB′ W 112° 49.CCD′.
To find the decimal for the north coordinate (ABB), you will need to solve the following Grade 3 'order of operations' math problems:
- A = ( 2 X 4 X 5 ) - ( 3 X 10 + 1)
- BB = ( 2 X 3 - 3 ) X ( 3 X 4 - 8 )
To find the decimal for the west coordinate (CCD), you will need to solve the following Grade 4 'long division' math problem:
Divide 607 (the dividend) by 60 (the divisor). The quotient will be a 2-digit number (CC), whereas the remainder will be a 1-digit number (D).