LMMS 6th-Graders Go Geocaching

Lower Macungie Middle School 6th-grade students recently embarked on an outdoor learning adventure with the help of LMMS teacher Patrick Campbell and a new global phenomenon known as "geocaching." 

Geocaching is a modern day method of searching for treasure. Different caches have been placed strategically (and are often hidden well) all over the world and have been logged into a website (geocaching.com) with global positioning (GPS) coordinates. 

Campbell leveraged the geocaching concept to help his students focus on a variety of traditional classroom topics in a non-traditional way, while having a bit of fun in the process. 

Campbell hid 12 geocaches throughout Lockridge Park, Alburtis, wrote down the GPS coordinates for each and then distributed those coordinates to his students during their geocaching field trip. 

LMMS borrowed GPS devices from the Colonial Intermediate Unit 21 for the geocaching excursion. (The intermediate unit actually maintains GPS devices that can be loaned out for academic purposes within the school district)

During the field trip, students took turns navigating to each geocache within the park using their GPS units. Within each cache were questions the students had to answer regarding the classroom topics they are studying. The students jotted the answers down in their “geocache journals,” a note-taking tool students used throughout the trip.

The subjects studied included: 

• math - metric conversions, map making, units of measurement 
• social studies - atitude and longitude, the five themes of geography, GPS
• science - the metric system, length
• reading - nonfiction articles, annotating and paraphrasing skills 
• writing - the writing process, expository writing.

Teaching against the backdrop of a real-world activity like geocaching is believed to help students understand the relevance of the subject matter they are learning in school.