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Classroom Geography Activity


Human64

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Hi,

Do they have to be the kids' own bugs? What if you "adopted" bugs that were already out there? There are a lot that would appeal to kids: Disney, Harry Potter, etc. You could do a search and have the children pick the bug they wanted to follow. Then put the bug on the child's tracking list, they could see where it had started and follow it along its continuing route.

 

We're just about to release one in Panama City Beach called "Rush Home". It's trying to come home again to NY, then go out into the world (British Isles, Denmark etc) and come back afterward. It would love to have schoolchildren watching its progress!

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If you're thinking of the students making and releasing their own bugs, which would be better because the kids would be more attached to the bug and its progress, an event would work. The kids would bring their bugs and the people who came to the event would take them. That's essentially how my recent bug launch went at EELBOY's event. Most of the racer bugs were mailed in and I just brought them, then the attendees took them.

 

A downside of the kids being attached to the bugs is that some of them will get lost during their missions and the kids will be disappointed, but that could happen if they are not their personal bugs too.

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So if a bug gets lost remember you have the copy. I would suggest after a bug gets lost you hand onto the copy and send the bug back out with just a laminated card attached to it.

 

I did a little demo for a 7th grade class last year. I discussed latitude and longitute with the class first and then pulled out the gps and had them follow the pointer around until they discovered an ammo box filled with treats for everyone.

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So if a bug gets lost remember you have the copy. I would suggest after a bug gets lost you hand onto the copy and send the bug back out with just a laminated card attached to it.

For most of my bugs, I have planned on the availability of copies of the hitchhiker (the object attached to the tag), so when bug gets lost, I can just attach a new instruction tag to another one and send it off (to the last holder), but don't send the copy tag. There is enough info on the instruction tag that the metal tag is redundant. Sadly, this method can support multiple replacements.

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Hi,

Do they have to be the kids' own bugs? What if you "adopted" bugs that were already out there? There are a lot that would appeal to kids: Disney, Harry Potter, etc. You could do a search and have the children pick the bug they wanted to follow. Then put the bug on the child's tracking list, they could see where it had started and follow it along its continuing route.

 

We're just about to release one in Panama City Beach called "Rush Home". It's trying to come home again to NY, then go out into the world (British Isles, Denmark etc) and come back afterward. It would love to have schoolchildren watching its progress!

I just sent a travel bug to Germany in an international cache called GeoK8's Geography Lesson. Your class would be welcome to track this one. The thing about TB's, is that with the people who don't play the game correctly, we have a lot of TB's that don't go anywhere. Might be better off "adopting" 3 per student. Add them to your watch list and when one of them moves somewhere, you can let the kids put stars on a map or give a report on the city. By watching 3 per kid, one of them might go somewhere quickly enough for your project, and the number is small enough to be manageable. This would also be cheap. If the kids really get into it, then you could buy some tags.

 

Do a search around your school looking for caches with travel bugs. Consider adopting those. I would highly doubt that anyone would mind a bunch of school kids watching their bugs.

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I'm a middle school teacher in Wisconsin, who incorporates geocaching in the social studies curriculum. I managed to purchase enough travel bugs for each student in my class. A rep at Groundspeak sold them to me at a discounted price since they were being used for education.

 

My students and I began a travel bug exchange cache in the nature pod next to our school. All of our bugs started the cache and now they are well on their way. I have my students keep track of their bug's travels. This is definitely a great way to keep the kids fresh on their geography skills and being familiar with the United States.

 

The cache is called Travel Bug School Field Trip. The description contains links to everyone's travel bug page. Check it out: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...dc-642c7ecf7f6a

 

If you would like to "adopt" any of our bugs, please contact me. We can also exchange e-mails with each other's classes.

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