Five Concepts You Can Teach Through Geocaching

Geocaching is one of the things that I spend a good bit of time talking about in both my workshop and in my webinar about blending technology into outdoor learning. Geocaching is a great activity to do to get kids outside for hands-on learning experiences. Here are five things that you can teach through geocaching activities.

Geospatial Awareness
The core of geocaching activities is locating hidden caches. This can be done through the use of GPS (either on a phone, a smartwatch, or on a dedicated GPS unit) or in an "old school" method of using maps. Finding a cache can require students to have an understanding of the distance between two or more places.

Cardinal Direction
Do your students know in which direction to turn if you tell them to walk north? Teach them about cardinal direction through geocaching activities. You can set up geocaching activities in and around your school yard that don't require students to use any electronic devices. Simply make a map or make a list of clues that give students information about the directions and distances they need to go in order to find a series of caches.

Earth Science
Let students test use their knowledge of rock types or plant types as they seek geocaches. You can incorporate a little civic duty into the lesson by asking students to pick up litter they find while geocaching.

Citizenship
If you or your students use the official Geocaching website to find caches in your area, you may find some that border on private property. This is an opportunity to teach students about respecting the property of others. Another opportunity to teach a lesson about citizenship is found in playing by the rules of geocaching. For example, students shouldn't move caches they've found.

Digital Citizenship
As with any activity that incorporates an online, public-facing component participating in official Geocaching activities provides us with a good opportunity to review the basics of good digital citizenship. Students who are placing caches for inclusion on the public listings of Geocaches need to be mindful of not including personally identifying and other sensitive information in their descriptions and hints.

Bonus item: It's hard for me to talk about geocaching without thinking about a couple of classic "geography songs." Enjoy!

Some of my Favorites - Geocaching!

This week is school vacation week here in Maine. I usually take this week off to go ice fishing on Moosehead Lake. Unfortunately, that's not happening this year. Instead I'll be "staycationing" and working on some projects around home. While on my staycation I'll be sharing some of my personal favorite tools.

Geocaching is one of the things that I spend a good bit of time talking about in both my workshop 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Learning. Geocaching is a great activity to do to get kids outside for hands-on learning experiences. Here are five things that you can teach through geocaching activities.

Geospatial Awareness
The core of geocaching activities is locating hidden caches. This can be done through the use of GPS (either on a phone, a smartwatch, or on a dedicated GPS unit) or in an "old school" method of using maps. Finding a cache can require students to have an understanding of the distance between two or more places.

Cardinal Direction
Do your students know in which direction to turn if you tell them to walk north? Teach them about cardinal direction through geocaching activities. You can set up geocaching activities in and around your school yard that don't require students to use any electronic devices. Simply make a map or make a list of clues that give students information about the directions and distances they need to go in order to find a series of caches.

Earth Science
Let students test use their knowledge of rock types or plant types as they seek geocaches. You can incorporate a little civic duty into the lesson by asking students to pick up litter they find while geocaching.

Citizenship
If you or your students use the official Geocaching website to find caches in your area, you may find some that border on private property. This is an opportunity to teach students about respecting the property of others. Another opportunity to teach a lesson about citizenship is found in playing by the rules of geocaching. For example, students shouldn't move caches they've found.

Digital Citizenship
As with any activity that incorporates an online, public-facing component participating in official Geocaching activities provides us with a good opportunity to review the basics of good digital citizenship. Students who are placing caches for inclusion on the public listings of Geocaches need to be mindful of not including personally identifying and other sensitive information in their descriptions and hints.

Bonus item: It's hard for me to talk about geocaching without thinking about a couple of classic "geography songs." Enjoy!

5 Things You Can Teach Through Geocaching

Geocaching is one of the things that I spend a good bit of time talking about in both my workshop and in my webinar 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Learning. Geocaching is a great activity to do to get kids outside for hands-on learning experiences. Here are five things that you can teach through geocaching activities.

Geospatial Awareness
The core of geocaching activities is locating hidden caches. This can be done through the use of GPS (either on a phone, a smartwatch, or on a dedicated GPS unit) or in an "old school" method of using maps. Finding a cache can require students to have an understanding of the distance between two or more places.

Cardinal Direction
Do your students know in which direction to turn if you tell them to walk north? Teach them about cardinal direction through geocaching activities. You can set up geocaching activities in and around your school yard that don't require students to use any electronic devices. Simply make a map or make a list of clues that give students information about the directions and distances they need to go in order to find a series of caches.

Earth Science
Let students test use their knowledge of rock types or plant types as they seek geocaches. You can incorporate a little civic duty into the lesson by asking students to pick up litter they find while geocaching.

Citizenship
If you or your students use the official Geocaching website to find caches in your area, you may find some that border on private property. This is an opportunity to teach students about respecting the property of others. Another opportunity to teach a lesson about citizenship is found in playing by the rules of geocaching. For example, students shouldn't move caches they've found.

Digital Citizenship
As with any activity that incorporates an online, public-facing component participating in official Geocaching activities provides us with a good opportunity to review the basics of good digital citizenship. Students who are placing caches for inclusion on the public listings of Geocaches need to be mindful of not including personally identifying and other sensitive information in their descriptions and hints.

Bonus item: It's hard for me to talk about geocaching without thinking about a couple of classic "geography songs." Enjoy!

5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons - Slides

Today, at the 2019 MACUL Conference I gave three presentations. The second of those presentations was 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons. This is a topic that combines two things that I enjoy, educational technology and being outdoors. You can take a look at the slides as they are embedded below. Some of the content from this presentation will be included in the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp where you can get some hands-on practice using some of the things that are featured in the slides.

How GPS Works

From finding a place to eat in a new city to navigating a detour to geocaching, GPS is an amazing technology. But just how does GPS work? NASA's eClips channel on YouTube has a good student-friendly explanation of how GPS works.


Applications for Education
Geocaching is a fun activity for students to do to learn about latitude and longitude, to discover geological features, learn or relearn basic math concepts, and to practice good digital citizenship. Seven years ago Jen Lefebvre, née Deyenberg wrote a great overview of geocaching in an education context. You can read that blog post here. When Jen wrote that post you had to use handheld GPS units to go on geocaching activities. Today, you can simply use the Geocaching Android app or iOS apps.

Three Apps to Incorporate Into Outdoor Learning Activities

One of my passions is encouraging teachers to take their students outside for class. The technology that our students use the most in their daily lives is meant to be mobile so don't keep it locked up in your classroom. Tomorrow, I am giving a presentation about this topic at the ESC 20 Library Resource Roundup. Three of the apps that I will be demonstrating during this presentation are the Google Science Journal, Nature Cat's Great Outdoors, and the Geocaching app from Groundspeak.

Google's Science Journal app provides some neat tools for recording data and writing observations. Within the app students create notebooks for recording experiment data and observations. Students can also use those notebooks to simply organize observations by topic. There are sensors built into the app for recording sound, speed, light, direction, and magnetism. Learn more about the app here. You can download the Android version here and the iOS version here.

Nature Cat's Great Outdoors is a free app from PBS Kids. The app, available for iOS and Android, provides students with activities they can do outdoors in all kinds of weather. To use the Nature Cat's Great Outdoors app students simply open it, press play, and select a "daily nature adventure." There are adventures for sunny days, rainy days, and snowy days. An example of a rainy day adventure is recording the sounds of rain drops and the sounds of splashing in puddles. The app has more than 100 adventure suggestions built into it. Students earn digital badges for completing adventures.

Geocaching is a fun activity for students to do to learn about latitude and longitude, to discover geological features, learn or relearn basic math concepts, and to practice good digital citizenship. Seven years ago Jen Lefebvre, née Deyenberg wrote a great overview of geocaching in an education context. You can read that blog post here. When Jen wrote that post you had to use handheld GPS units to go on geocaching activities. Today, you can simply use the Geocaching Android app or iOS apps.

Learn more about this topic in my on-demand webinar, 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons.

Join Me Tomorrow for 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons

Tomorrow afternoon at 4pm Eastern Time I'm hosting a Practical Ed Tech webinar titled 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons. I hosted this webinar back in the spring to close out the school year. It was well received then so I'm offering it again. In the webinar I'll share activities, tools, and strategies for getting your kids outside and involved in lessons that incorporate technology.

In tomorrow's webinar you can learn about:

• Augmented Reality 
• Digital mapping 
• Geocaching 
• Activity tracking 
• Observing and collecting scientific data

Register here

Your registration includes: 

• Access to the live webinar on July 31st at 4pm Eastern Time. 
• Please take advantage of the Q&A 
• Unlimited access to the webinar recording. 
• Digital handouts. 
• PD certificate.

Register here

About this post: The sale of my professional development, webinars, online courses, and my on-site professional development services provides the funding to keep Free Technology for Teachers running. The resources that I feature in my online courses and webinars are free. However, there is a significant cost associated with creating, hosting, and managing the courses and webinars which is why I am not able to provide them for free.  

5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons

By the time that many of you read this, I'll be fly fishing on one of my favorite rivers in Maine. Where I'm going there isn't any cell phone reception. Even though there won't be reception, I will still have my phone with me to take pictures. Sometimes I take pictures of fish that I catch and other times I take pictures of insects that are hatching. I take pictures of the insects so that I can later look for fly patterns to either tie myself (I rarely have time for that these days) or buy to match what I've found on the water. This is just one way that technology can be helpful in learning about the outdoors. Here are some other ways that you might consider blending technology into outdoor lessons.

Augmented Reality scavenger hunts
Create your own or have your students use a tool like Metaverse to create augmented reality scavenger hunts. Think of it like making an educational version of Pokemon Go.

Geocaching
Geocaching can be a fun way for students to learn about latitude and longitude, to discover geological features, learn or relearn basic math concepts, and to practice good digital citizenship. Go to Geocaching.org to get started.

Planning Through Digital Mapping
Use tools like Google's My Maps or the measuring tools in Google Earth to have students plan safe walking and biking routes.

Activity Tracking
The thing that jumps to mind here is using products like Fitbit or Strava to track how many steps you take or how far you've ridden a bike. But there's another option and that is the Google Science Journal app that kids can use to record observations about acceleration, noise, and outdoor lighting.

Recording Observations / Collecting Data
Sites like Project Noah were designed to encourage teachers to get their kids outside to record and share observations about that natural world around them.

Learn more about each of these ideas in my on-demand webinar, 5 Ways to Blend Technology Into Outdoor Lessons. It's one of the webinars included in the current Practical Ed Tech Summer Sales Pack.  

Three Activities for Geography Awareness Week

This week is Geography Awareness Week. Yesterday, I posted a list of resources for teaching and learning about geography. Today, I have three activities that you can do with students to help them understand geography.

Create a map of art. 
Have your students create maps of art and artists around the world. Students can map the locations of where a piece of art is housed, where it was created, where the artist lived, and the places that inspired the artist. Each placemark on a student's map could include a picture of the artwork, a picture of the artist, and or a video about the art and artist. To provide a complete picture a student can include text and links to more information about the art and artist.

This project can be accomplished by using either Google's My Maps (formerly Maps Engine Lite), Google Earth Tour Builder, or Google Earth. My recommendation for teachers and students who are new to creating multimedia maps is to start out with either Google My Maps on a Chromebook or Google Earth Tour Builder on a Mac or PC. Click here for a tutorial on Google's My Maps service. Click here for a tutorial on Google Earth Tour Builder.

Learn about the geography of other places through Skype.
Use your online personal learning network to get in touch with a teacher in another part of the world and connect your classrooms. Have your students develop a list of questions that they have about the climate, plant life, and animals in the area around the other classroom.

Go Geocaching.
There is not a better way to learn about the geography around you than to go outside and explore. Geocaching is a fun way to learn about latitude and longitude while on the hunt for "hidden treasure." Jen Deyenberg wrote a great introduction to geocaching for teachers on this blog about four years ago. That post is still relevant. For a shorter overview of geocaching, watch the video below.

Video - How GPS Works

In the past I've run a couple of posts about geocaching activities. This guest post by Jen Deyenberg outlined student geocaching activities. Geocaching relies on the use of GPS. On Friday The Atlantic's Picture of the Day was of the interior of a satellite. That picture as well as thinking about GPS got me to search for a video explanation of how GPS works.

NASA's eClips channel on YouTube has a good student-friendly explanation of how GPS works.

Geocaching - Global GPS Cache Hunt Site

Geocaching can be a fun way to get students outside for some hands-on geography lessons. To help you find geocaching challenges in your area, Geocaching.com recently updated their geocache map. You can now switch between map views (road, satellite, street maps, and cycle maps) and search for geocaches in your area.

If you've never tried geocaching, the video below from Geocaching.com explains in simple terms what geocaching is and how you can get started. There's clearly a plug at the end for Geocaching.com's subscription service (they also have a free service) but otherwise it's a good introduction to geocaching.

A Simple Explanation of Geocaching

Geocaching can be a fun and educational outdoor activity. The video below from Geocaching.com explains in simple terms what geocaching is and how you can get started. There's clearly a plug at the end for Geocaching.com's subscription service (they also have a free service) but otherwise it's a good introduction to geocaching.



Applications for Education
Having students participate in geocaching activities can be a good way to move geography lessons out of the classroom.

Art, GPS, and Geography Combine

Over the weekend CNET ran a story about a Swedish art student that claims to have created the world's largest self-portrait using GPS and the package delivery service DHL. Whether or not the story is true is highly debatable, but regardless of truth it makes an interesting story and sparks an idea for combining Art, GPS, and Geography. The Swedish art student, Erik Nordenankar, created a world's largest self-portrait by sending a GPS device around the world through DHL. Nordenankar claims that he planned the routes the package would take so that the path of travel would represent a portrait. Embedded below is a video of Nordenankar demonstrating the project.



Applications for Education
Nordenankar's idea represents a great synthesis of technology and art. There isn't a public art teacher or geography teacher that could afford to try what Nordenankar did, but there are some free methods for simulating a similar experience. Students could create drawings using Google Earth or Google Maps by plotting placemarks in artistic shapes. After plotting the placemarks students can play "connect the dots" to complete the drawing. To incorporate an element of Social Studies students can research and report on the places where they plotted their placemarks.
If you have access to GPS units, students could recreate a project like Nordenankar's on a local scale.

Update: Nordenankar has confirmed on his website that the drawing was a hoax. None-the-less it's still a good synthesis of art and geography.

Free Technology For Teachers: My Wonderful World - Geography Resources

My Wonderful World is really a wonderful website for Geography teachers and Geography students. My Wonderful World provides a host of great ideas, lesson plans, games, videos, and visual aids for teaching and learning geography. I've spent about an hour exploring the website over the last few days and I've only begun to scratch the surface of all that My Wonderful World has to offer. Some of the items on My Wonderful World that immediately stand out are great links to resources about geocaching and earthcaching activities, preparation materials for the National Geography Bee, and free classroom maps for teachers. My Wonderful World also has a Youtube channel where teachers will find appropriate Geography videos.

Applications for Education
My Wonderful World has a list of the top ten reasons for teaching and learning geography. In each of the items on the list are links to great teaching and learning materials. One of the best items on the list is #6, "make it extracurricular." My Wonderful World suggests making geocaching or Earthcaching an extracurricular activity to get parents and community members involved in Geography education. This is a great idea because geocaching gets students outside while providing a hands-on learning experience. If you're a Geography teacher in a rural school (like I am) geocaching provides practice with a skill that students may already have or may have a genuine need for.

Here is a short video from My Wonderful World.