Dr. Barbara L. BranchBranch Consulting

Eureka: Using Geocaching to Support Differentiation

What is geocaching?

Began in 2000

*Military satellites opened to the public *On May 3rd, someone hid a ‘cache’ in Oregon. It was visited twice within 3 days and logged in the log book once.*Mike Teague, the first to find it, built a web page to document the ‘caches.*Jeremy Irish, the current operator of the Geocaching website, expanded the idea and named it ‘geocaching’.

What is geocaching?

*Individuals hide ‘caches’ or treasure boxes

What is geocaching?

*They post latitude and longitude on the internet www.geocaching.com

*Others locate the treasure using a GPS unit and log the visit

*Sometimes the hunter trades treasures or leave treasures (called swag)

What is geocaching?

What is geocaching?

Getting Your Students StartedYou need a classroom or school set of 10-15 GPS

Units & Compasses

*Write a technology grant for $500 - $1000 *Tech Grants *Donors Choose.org

*Garmin*etrex*GPS 60

*Compasses*Bruton

Geocaching ToolsGPS Units

*Magellan

Geocaching ToolsGPS Units

*Lowrance

Geocaching ToolsGPS Units

*Garmin

Geocaching ToolsSmartphone app

*Geocaching.com

Geocaching Tools

Geocaching Tools

Getting Your Students Started

*Teach latitude and longitude*Teach GPS Unit and compass use*Teach GPS*Teach geocaching vocabulary*Cache*Swag*FTF*DNF*Log*Waypoints*Geocoins

Getting Your Students Started

*Teach the geocaching process

*Get started with simple caches that are large enough to see without too much exploring (plastic glad storage containers)

*Hide caches in your schoolyard or neighborhood park

Supporting Differentiation*Select a lesson or unit you want to differentiate

*Select an activity or final project*Do the activity as a geocaching session*Hide the clues or questions in caches

*Students learning about geography, directionality, latitude, and longitude

*Tiering can be done by creating various levels of questions, activities, or information for each cache

*Compacting can be done by providing different caches for different levels of students.

Supporting Differentiation*History

*Explore historic sites, cemeteries, landmarks using GPS*Create a family vacation

*Science*Plot various GPS locations along a local river or lake

and evaluate water quality at each location*Use Google Earth to follow the Iditarod Race

*Math*Find caches with objects to measure, record, and figure

the average*Provide riddles or word problems at each cache

Barb’s Diigo

Is this worth the time?*Active learning*10% vs 90% of retention*Stimulates students to search further and ask more

questions

*Gets kids and you outside and physically active

*Students can share with their families and create a new healthy family activity

*It’s fun

www.drbabs.wikispaces.com