Adelaide geocache?

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Andrew1975
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Adelaide geocache?

Post by Andrew1975 » 24 March 15 1:38 pm

Hi all, new to the community and still learning about it so apologies for my lack of understanding!

My wife teaches Year 3 in an Eastern suburbs PS and she's just about to start a unit on mapping. I thought a great thing for the kids to do would be to understand geocaching and, if possible, go search one out (if there is one local enough). As I said, this is all new to me, but any directions/advice would be welcome!

Regards,

Andrew

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caughtatwork
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Re: Adelaide geocache?

Post by caughtatwork » 24 March 15 3:00 pm

No offence intended but having kids search for a real geocache may be problematical. Kids will be kids and are likely to revisit and perform a "swap" without swapping stuff in. They're also more likely to show their mates which may result in the cache going missing or having all contents removed.

If she wants to set up a mapping unit, she may want to consider hiding a cache of her own, but not listing it. That way any damage to the cache is limited her personal property and maybe could be removed / replaced for each new group of students. If she hides it on school property that would also mean the kids aren't leaving the property to get to the cache location resulting in less danger.

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CraigRat
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Re: Adelaide geocache?

Post by CraigRat » 24 March 15 5:12 pm

I remember someone introducing this game to their class and the publicly listed caches in the immediate vicinity of the school got trashed repeatedly. The logs placed on these caches were ridiculous too :-)

If I was doing it in an a school environment I'd hide ones around the school and publish the co-ords on an internal noticeboard/webpage/blog or whatever people use nowadays.
You would also then have a little more control on what the kids do and not have the worries of who interacts with both the caches and the students. Having the cache on any particular website is the least important bit of the game.

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Re: Adelaide geocache?

Post by wombatatcrows » 24 March 15 7:03 pm

I am involved in Scouts and have been asked on a few occasions to teach the scouts about using GPS units and to achieve this I use geocaching as an example of how the GPS units can be used.

Rather than using publicly listed geocaches I setup a series of caches around or near the local scout hall.
I have found that an oval or large park is the best place. The basic process I use now goes something like this

1. SELECT a theme for the caches eg Planets, Science, Animals, Cartoon Characters or what ever may be the current theme of theme of the program. This is only limited by your imagination.

2. On a sheet of paper, prepare a table with one word (relevant to the theme ) and a unique number in each table cell. I use font size of about 20 so it is easily read without being removed from its location.

3. PRINT and LAMINATE the sheet.

4. Cut the laminated sheet into tags (one per cell) so each tag has a number and a word.

5. Use a hole punch to punch one hole in each tag. These are the caches that the scouts will need to find.

6. TIE the tags in various locations, under rocks, bridges, stairs, seats. on fences in bushes BLAH BLAH BLAH
MAKING sure you record the number and its GPS co-ordinates

7. SETUP a table in the middle of the oval/park. We have a lantern on it because scouts do it at night !!

8. AFTER the scouts have been shown how to use the GPS units (usually on a previous night) we send them in small groups 3 or 4 to find ONE of the tags (geocaches) and then they return to report the number they were given and the WORD they found to the control point. Then they are given their NEXT geocache number and/or the o-ordinates to find.

The benefits of this approach include
a. The scouts can be kept within a defined boundary e.g. do not leave the park and/or do not cross any roads
b. An example can be shown to them of what they are looking for first.
c. Low cost to setup ( other than the GPS units of course)
d. Laminated tags have a reasonable life in the outdoors up to a couple of weeks.
e. Theme can be changed easily to suit the audience.
f. GPS co-ordinates can be recycled with the next class.
g. Different degrees of difficulty can be incorporated easily.
h. No impact on existing public geocaches.
i. Depending on the age group the co-ordinates may can be pre-loaded into GPS units
OR the kids can enter the co-ordinates as they are given each cache .
I have found that with 8-11 year olds it is easier to pre-load the co-ordinates
but with older scouts they can enter their co-ordinates. But we usually have about an hour to do the activity.

I hope this helps. Wombat.

Goldenwattle
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Re: Adelaide geocache?

Post by Goldenwattle » 24 March 15 7:55 pm

I left a bear TB in a Sydney cache. Then next day a scout group visited. They took the TB and made a log of "We kidnapped the bear." Well they certainly did, as it has never been heard from again. I did email them, but nothing.
Not a good idea letting school groups visit real Geocaches.

Andrew1975
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Re: Adelaide geocache?

Post by Andrew1975 » 26 March 15 10:58 am

Thanks all for your feedback! Suggestions noted and we'll work towards a more in-house solution!

Cheers

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