Classmates' Portraits for Activity Section

Finally, I finished all the portraits of my classmates, they will get their pictures on Friday.^^

Dear mates^^

23 friends.

Friday Fun (What will we have hidden in our Geocache Safe?)

Come along on Friday to find out what the treasure is? 

GeoSmaching

The Geocaching game has created a community of people who are against the idea of the game called, 'GeoSmachers' and their reason for vandalism is that certain Geocaches are in inappropriate locations, harming the natural environment of wildlife, or being disrespectful to land owners.

Geocaching can't be all bad, considering that the although the GeoSmashing community is active, it is small. One incident were Geocaching saved the lives of two when A geocaching box helped a rescue team to find the location of two stranded hillwalkers on January 2008 on Mt. Hood. Story like these help to promote the idea of Geocaching, especially if it saves lives, or gets one of the house for an afternoon walk.

To find out more on GeoSmaching have a look at the following form, GeoSmaching. 

Man dies after falling off Dishman Hills cliff

SPOKANE VALLEY -- A man fell from a cliff in Spokane Valley's Dishman Hills area Monday afternoon and died. Spokane Valley officials say a man and woman were hiking and "geocaching" in the Dishman Hills Natural Area. According to police, the woman flagged down a passing Spokane Valley Police officer, and told him her husband had fallen down a 100-foot cliff. Paramedics were called, but the man died at the scene. Officers say they are treating the incident as an accident, but will conduct a full investigation.

Geocache Blown Up

Engaging Boys: Geocaching: Introduction to Geocaching

Latitude 47

This is the the official link to the Geocaching community Blog. Latitude 47. One online member posted this comment,


A *HUGE* thanks to every single one of the VOLUNTEER reviewers out there. Without you,... well,... most of us would be breaking the law. ;)


This on line community is made of volunteers who share there time and experiences to help promote Geocaching and support others in their Geocaching community around the world.

More from Geocaching EDUCATION

Geocaching education 

 

More on Geocaching and education

Here is a great slide show to get you started on how Geocaching can be helpful in education 'Geocaching Education'.

Geocaching Education

Geocaching official website promoting education.

GPS Activities being done by other schools!

Using GPS and Geocaching in the core curriculum has become a powerful tool in enhancing student understanding of geography, scientific inquiry, math concepts, physical education, problem solving, and language arts. Students in this picture are mapping a local park. It was an easy 5 minute walk to the park. The teacher planned out waypoints for the student to log as part of a larger introduction to how GPS units work.

Click on the image and it will re-direct you to the website that will give you an idea of possible lesson plans that can use Geocaching, fun learning. 

GPS + Geocaching + education = FUN

This is a link to a presentation which talks about how Geocaching has great benefits for education purpose. GPS + Geocaching + Education shows clearly how technology can be utilized in a positive way for the greater benefit of our society. It really outlines how Geocaching could be used for searching for Easter Eggs and other treasure hunt activities.

Boy Scouts Geocaching

This is a great video that shows Geocaching as yet another way to teach kids. The scout leader in this video mentions that when they are out Geocaching, he can point out what poisonous plants there are, the geology of the area and still have fun. The leader makes the point that they need to know the terminology around geocaching. One of the kids mentions in the video that when you find something you actually feel proud of yourself. The scout leader again mentions that when they find a cache, they like to hide it better than the way they found it. On of the key elements of Scouting is teaching, and teaching one another, so Geocaching has become an important aspect to their educational activities.

This year, the Boy Scouts of America announced their plans for a new Geocaching Merit Badge. Watch our latest Lost & Found video to see how Boy Scout Troop 75 incorporates geocaching into their program. The scout troop from from Manhattan, Kansas also demonstrates some of the critical thinking and problem solving skills needed to earn the badge.

Requirements for the Geocaching Merit Badge are available online. The official Geocaching Merit Badge patch is in final development and expected to be released in the near future.Subscribe to this YouTube channel to be one of the first to see new videos!

Country File Geocaching

The word is out that Geocaching is about...

More from the BBC news

The 21st century treasure hunt 

Internet treasure hunt becomes a problem

July 2011

Help

Hi-tech treasure hunts, carried out using the internet, are increasingly popular. But the pastime, known as geocaching, caused a bomb scare in West Yorkshire.

It's all supposed to be a bit of fun, websites direct people to thousands of locations across Britain to uncover hidden boxes where they can leave a note or take a souvenir.

But one geocache was mistakenly reported to police as a suspect package - and was blown up in a controlled explosion, in the town of Wetherby.

Danny Savage reports 'Internet treasure hunt causes bomb scare.'

Geocaching saves lives

This article that I came across explains how a geocaching box helped a rescue team to find the location of two stranded hillwalkers on January 2008.

Justin Votos and Matthew Pitts didn't have a GPS device when they went climbing on Mt. Hood earlier this week, but that didn't keep them from stumbling upon a geocache that would lead rescuers to the stranded duo. Luckily, the climbers, who were stuck on the mountain after bad weather set in, had a cell phone and could call up authorities to describe the cache, which led to their backcountry rescue. Most people explicitly go hunting for the hidden treasure stashes using handheld GPS receivers, but since all the boxes are listed on the geocaching website, rescuers could pinpoint Votos and Pitts' location from afar. It only took a couple hours to find the pair once rescuers knew their coordinates. Lesson learned? There are two really. First, don't forget your cell phone and your own GPS receiver when hiking off-trail or in challenging conditions. Second, Geocaching is even cooler than we thought.

Geocaching Activity

Our team planed to let the class experience what and how geocaching works. We will devide the whole class into five groups and make sure that each group has at least one smart phone. We will prepare five sites for these groups looking for. It is assumed that each group make something with the objects in the geocaches they found, then bring them back to our lab so we can see what they make.


We also think about giving one site but different groups go out looking for it one after another. In this situation, the later group are asked to make something new based one the thing that the previous group left.


What should be in the geocaches?

Geocache treasure

I was interested in looking to see what people actually put into their Geocache box and also what type of box that they might use, and I was really surprised to find such a variety of storage boxes and contents in them. Below are some images that I thought were interesting to what you might expect to find some day when you are out geocaching.

Geocaching Underwater!!!!

I found this interesting article published in the washington post on 2nd February highlighting that Geocaching has become a hobby amongst Scuba Divers.

Terrestrial based hobby becomes popular with scuba enthusiasts looking for new adventure

Geocaching Ireland

There is a great website to get those who are interested in Ireland on the topic of Geocaching. It's called Geocaching Ireland. It was established in 2003 and has been very successful.

When you go online you can get excess to an interactive map that allows you to choose what county that you would like to go Geocaching in. The website provides locations both north and south of the country. This is a great site to get you out and going.

Here is what the interactive map looks like. Click on this and it will take you to the website map to show you all the possible Geocache's in the different countries.

Geocaching for Dummies

I could not believe it when I found this. I normally go into my book store and perhaps see those new and ever increasing selection of books called 'For Dummies'. Well now there is 'Geocaching For Dummies'. Yes indeed, it's out there and ready to get more people involved. Here is a link to the Dummies.com website. The website gives you a quick breakdown on all the rules and what your meant to do. This is a good resource if you are curious about what Geocaching is all about.   

Geocaching Podcast

Geocaching podcasting  allows users to know more about possible caching locations and warns people about possible problems with certain caches. It lets those interested if certain caches that may be  dangerous and informs the wider community of events related to caching. It talks about public parks banning the geocaching game however the podcast debates that they should allow this game so that it could encourage the members of the public to go to national parks and increase social communities to come to gather. 
Also another good read is this article, 'When geocaching goes wrong.' One of the main issues in this article is the governments concern for certain geocaches and their locations in respect to safety and which  led to certain geocaches being archived.

The challenges of Geocaching

I found this blog interesting for the challenges that geocaching can presents.

Traditional Geocache

Geocaching is an outdoor sporting activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (tupperware or similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Geocaching is often described as a "game of high-tech hide and seek", sharing many aspects with bench marking, trig pointing, orienteering, treasure-hunting, letter boxing, and way making.

Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven countries, including Antarctica. After 10 years of activity there are over 1,532,000 active geocaches published on various websites. There are over 5 million geocachers worldwide.

Here I did some research about Traditional Geocache.

For the traditional geocache, a geocacher will place a waterproof container containing a log book (with pen or pencil) and trade items then record the cache's coordinates. These coordinates, along with other details of the location, are posted on a listing site (see list of some sites below). Other geocachers obtain the coordinates from that listing site and seek out the cache using their GPS handheld receivers. The finding geocachers record their exploits in the logbook and online. Geocachers are free to take objects (except the logbook, pencil, or stamp) from the cache in exchange for leaving something of similar or higher value.

A Geocoin

Typical cache "treasures" are not high in monetary value but may hold personal value to the finder. Aside from the logbook, common cache contents are unusual coins or currency, small toys, ornamental buttons, CDs, or books. Also common are objects that are moved from cache to cache called "hitchhikers", such as Travel Bugs or Geocoins, whose travels may be logged and followed online. Cachers who initially place a Travel Bug or Geocoins often assign specific goals for their trackable items. Examples of goals are to be placed in a certain cache a long distance from home, or to travel to a certain country, or to travel faster and farther than other hitchhikers in a race. Higher value items are occasionally included in geocaches as a reward for the First to Find (called "FTF"), or in locations which are harder to reach. Dangerous or illegal items, weapons, and pornography are generally not allowed and are specifically against the rules of most geocache listing sites.

A Travel Bug from Hong Kong attached to a Common Stored Value Ticket.

Geocache container sizes range from "nanos", which can be smaller than the tip of finger and only have enough room to store the log sheet, to 20 liter (5 gallon) buckets or even larger containers. The most common cache containers in rural areas are lunch-box sized plastic storage containers or surplus military ammunition cans. Ammo cans are considered the gold standard of containers because they are very sturdy, waterproof, animal and fire resistant, relatively cheap, and have plenty of room for trade items. Smaller containers are more common in urban areas because they can be more easily hidden, the most common of these is the 35mm film canister.

If a geocache has been vandalized or stolen it is said to have been "muggled" or "plundered." The former term plays off the fact that those not familiar with geocaching are called muggles, a term borrowed from the Harry Potter series of books which was rising in popularity at the same time Geocaching got its start.

Geocaching Smartphone Application

How It Works

The iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4G use a combination of GPS, Wi-Fi positioning and cell towers to determine your approximate location. Groundspeak's iPhone Application then queries the Geocaching.com database in real-time and provides a list of geocaches near you.



Features

Instant, direct access to Geocaching.com's database of worldwide geocaches
Search by current location, address or GC code
Filter your hides and finds from the Geocaching.com search results
Access geocache details, including description, photo gallery, attributes, recent logs, hint and inventory
Look up trackable item details, including item goals, while on the trail
Save geocache listings, including maps and photos, for quick retrieval and offline use
Log geocache finds and post notes in the field
Download active pocket queries for use while outside of network coverage
Submit Trackable logs
Upload photos when you log a geocache
View geocache web pages on geocaching.com without leaving the application using embedded web browser

Advanced navigation capabilities
View nearby caches on the embedded map
View cache size, terrain and difficulty rating directly from the map screen
Navigate to geocaches with a simulated compass arrow (iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4G only) or directly from the map screen
Add custom waypoints when navigating to multi-caches
Switch between street, topographic, satellite and Google maps (different map types may have different functionality)
Rotate map to match your heading (iPhone 3GS and 4G option only)

Understanding Geocaching practices and Motivations

The link provided is a paper that looks at the present findings from a field study of everyday geocaching behavior. One of the intriguing things that the paper also looks at is the practices and motivations surrounding participants' creation of these experiences. "Understanding Geocaching practices and motivations."