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Eureka: Using Geocaching to Support Differentiation

Eureka: Using Geocaching to Support Differentiation. Dr. Barbara L. Branch Branch Consulting. 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 .

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Eureka: Using Geocaching to Support Differentiation

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  1. Eureka: Using Geocaching to Support Differentiation Dr. Barbara L. Branch Branch Consulting

  2. 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’.

  3. What is geocaching? • Individuals hide ‘caches’ or treasure boxes

  4. 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)

  5. What is geocaching?

  6. What is geocaching?

  7. Getting Your Students Started You 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

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. 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.

  11. 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

  12. Barb’s Diigo

  13. 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

  14. www.drbabs.wikispaces.com

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