Geocaching

Have you ever heard of this? I hadn't either, but it's like a secret society. A secret nerdy society, maybe, but, since I like nerdy things, the kids and I had a blast. You take a GPS device (any that will let you enter manual coordinates) and search for these "geocaches" that other people have hidden - all over the world (there's even one on the international space station, I've been told). Inside the geocache, which can be any kind or size of storage container, are little treasures that you can take and exchange for whatever you've brought with you. Except food, which animals will try to get to and in the process, mangle the geocache.

Go to the geocaching site: http://www.geocaching.com/ to find hidden geocaches in your area and get the coordinates. Enter the coordinates into your GPS, and start looking! Usually, they are hidden in trees or other natural areas, but some are in metro areas too. Once you find the geocache, you can go online and post comments & tips. If you have a smart phone, you can use it to do all of this stuff too (as long as you have the app, which I think was $10 or something like that). You can hide your own geocaches too, but you have to make sure to get permission from the property owners first.

Our curriculum has weekly "nature walks" built in - I'm thinking you could incorporate a nature study into your geocaching and make it even more fun. We haven't been doing the nature walks, and we don't have a GPS, but I'm definitely considering giving this a try. I heard you can snag a cheap GPS device on ebay...