The Great American Scavenger Hunt!

After exploring Dr. Christie's website I found out about how to use a GPS and Geocaching in your classroom as a wonderful teaching tool. I found that the majority of her work seems to be geared towards the middle and upper grade levels. However, being a third grade teacher at heart I truly believe that her ideas can be incorporated into the third grade curriculum. It should be noted that she did have some ideas for elementary level but for whatever reason that part of her website was down.

First of all, if you are like me you may have never heard of geocaching. Put simply it is nothing more than a treasure hunt. What child or person for that fact does not like a treasure hunt? I for one am all about making learning fun and what a great way. Here is an example of what a geocache box looks like:



The example lesson that she has on the above website can be uses across the curriculum and that makes it even more appealing to me! She first splits her class into small groups of 3 or 4 students. They then choose from a list of eight predetermined vacation destination to research. After they have complied their data they then get to create a brochure to advertise their vacation to fellow classmate and parents alike.



She then states that the teacher is to place clues to each of these vacation spots in a geocache box. After which each of the boxes are hidden in various locations. The students then get to go on a scavenger hunt, using a GPS tracking system, in search for the geocache boxes to lead them to their final destination!



What a wonderful idea! On this same website she also gives some tips as to which GPS systems to get. Not to forget, she gives you all the tools needed to make you a well informed educator ready to present and persuade any administrator to allow you to purchase this equipment for your school! Way to go Dr. Christie! For more information on Dr. Christie please follow this to learn more!