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Benchmarking for science fair?


two mapinis

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Hello, benchmark hunters ---

 

My son is in 1st grade and facing his very first science fair. I thought I would work with his interests, which are maps and roads. I told him about geocaching, and we really want to try it, but for a science fair, i thought it would be more "scientific" to include, possibly concentrate on benchmarks. I want to teach him what they are, how to find them, then try to "collect" benchmarks within our city. At his age, one of the science fair categories is Hobby or Collection, and I thought benchmarks are just as interesting as a rock or dinosaur collection and can teach something about science.

 

Anyway, here are my questions:

 

I have been reading through the Find a Benchmark section at Geocaching.com, and have just begun looking around the NGS site, but does anyone have any additional, direct PAGE links to basic definitions and information (like what benchmarks are used for) on NGS benchmarks. I can use all the help I can get, trying to "translate" this into kid-friendly language, and the more I read the more complex it seems - at the very least we want to be accurate.

 

I want to have a manageable size project, not too easy, not too hard. I will explore the search page on NGS soon, but the location search on Geocaching.com returns 196 benchmarks within a 15 mile radius. We live on a state border, so I will discount the ones out of state and probably out of city limits (just to have a defined area for our search). But there are so many types - benchmark disks, vertical and horizontal control disks, local landmarks (church towers, factory smokestacks), topographical station disks, triangulation station disks. On the NGS website there were additional designations for Class A or B....? After all that, my question is - do I set out to look for all of them? Do I sort them by type, look mostly for more "important" ones (depends on what "Class" means)? Any thoughts here would be helpful.

 

Does anyone see any major holes or problems in our plans - anything that I am too new and green to recognize as a problem?

 

We hit the town on Friday to search for our first BMs. School is out, the weather is supposed to be clear and mild, and I want to introduce my son to a topo map.

 

Thanks in advance for help.

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What a great science fair idea, "ranelson"!

 

I certainly don't think anyone would expect a six-year-old boy to track down 196 benchmarks. Maybe help him find and photograph a mixture of types and agencies. Demonstrate that not all survey stations are disks by including a few structures, such as a church steeple or a city hall dome. If he can grasp the concepts, have him explain why a triangulation station is different from vertical and horizontal control stations. (Then post his explanation here for the benefit of the rest of us. :-) )

 

Try to include in the display some benchmarks near his school or wherever the science fair will be held, so that people who see his exhibit will know that they can go see one themselves. People are always surprised when I tell them that there's a benchmark just a block or two from where we're talking!

 

A nice graphic would be a printout of the benchmarks in your area from the map interface on the NGS website (http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/datasheet.prl?Explain=NgsMap).

 

Have fun!

 

Patty

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I think a challenge for you will be a way to explain (in the display) what these discs are for to little kids without their eyes rolling back in their heads. Kids that age need material to be exciting, and their attention span is about... "Look, a bird!"

 

Having said that, let me add that this is a neat idea.

Edited by Okiebryan
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Great idea! A couple basic things you might need:

 

1) Simple digital camera your son can use. Should have a good Macro (closeup) capability.

2) Decent color printer for pics to put on a display.

3) GPS receiver, it at least helps. Not necessarily needed, but makes it cooler! Maybe do one just by the "to reach" directions and maps without the GPS.

4) You may want to get into the basic idea of a GPS, how it works. Lots of resources on the web.

5) Rags, water, small digging tools, there are some suggestion in the FAQ & Wiki.

 

Good luck, and feel free to ask any other questions here!

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An Update and a Thank You --

 

Everyone who answered, I just wanted to let you know that your responses were very helpful. My son's science fair project was all about "collecting" benchmarks, and it won 2nd prize in his category. I helped him put up a display board with a topo map of our city (actually printed and pieced together from libremap.org), a couple of handwritten definitions and list of resources. But the gem of his project, which he carries around, shows to everyone he meets, and takes to bed to read like a storybook, was a three-ring binder where he documented all our finds. The categories were Benchmark Disks (found 13), Metal Rods (found 3), Landmarks (6), Not Found (5), and Destroyed (3), with a final section for Research. For each BM, I printed the description and some of the logs from GC.com, he filled out an information sheet for each benchmark found, and we took photos. Now that things have slowed down, we are slowly getting them logged on GC. Most had been found before, but we have one that was in the loading dock of our Federal Courthouse that no one else has logged, and many photos that no one else has posted. His first grade teacher was so impressed this week when he explained his project to the class ("he really knows EVERYTHING about those benchmarks" -- I hated to correct her). And, we seem to have started a new hobby - we spent two days in south Louisiana over the Thanksgiving weekend looking around town for more BMs. When we get the photos back we'll have to log those, too.

 

Thanks to everyone for your help. This has been a wonderful learning activity, lots of fun, a little science and more exercise than most got with their science fair projects. He's still looking up more for us to go find - I should never have bookmarked GC.com for him!

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