Earthcaching

I plan on focusing the last few weeks of our class finding actual lessons and activities I can integrate into my elementary curriculum. My goal is to post a link and develop two or three activities that I can use with my K-4 students.

EarthCaching
http://www.earthcache.org/

So, I came across a subset of geocaching called EarthCaching. Visitors of an EarthCache take notes, recording observations while at a site and then log their visit on the EarthCache website by reporting what they learned. The purpose of EarthCache is educational, and they are all related to the earth. Participants can visit locations around the world, either in the field or online, to learn something new about the Earth and its systems. Sites are generally located where there is an interesting geologic or geographic phenomenon or feature. Sample EarthCaches include landforms, vegetation, rock strata, climate, soil types, population distribution, and human impacts on the landscape. To ensure that the EarthCaches are truly educational, all sites posted are subject to approval from the Geological Society of America (GSA).

So I went to the site to see what I could find for Florida. You can search by country, state, and feature. The closest I could find was an EarthCache from an Upper Tampa Bay Park in Hillsborough County.

Here is what the cache entailed:

1) Post a photo of you and your GPS at the end of the Eagle trail with Mobbly Bay in the background.
2) Send an e-mail to us with the answers to the following questions:

• Why are hardwood trees often found growing around the ponds located in the pine flatwoods?
• Identify the area surrounding the boardwalk and note the surface condition at the time you visited? (i.e. dry, damp, muddy, wet, flooded, etc.)
• Name two animals or reptiles which frequently inhabit the pine flatwoods.
• What happens to pine flatwoods in the absence of frequent fires?

Answers to the questions would be obtained from a nature guide as well as reference signs throughout the park.


Possible Ideas For My Curriculum:

While this cache is too far away from our school, we have several nature parks within 5 miles of our school. I hope to enlist the help of our science resource teacher to create a similar EarthCache for one of the nature preserves we already visit on field trips (Boyd Hill or Wheedon Island).

Another idea that I took away from this is a photo scavenger hunt, where students mark the GPS coordinate of various places in the preserve based on photos. I teach a photography camp over the summer and take my campers to the Boyd Hill Preserve. I could take pictures of significant landmarks at the preserve over the summer for use with my classes in the fall. Students can be given places to locate based on photos. Once they locate their place, they would take notes about the environment and record the latitude and longitude where the photo was taken.