Looking for a fun way to teach geography, navigation, map skills, science and more? EarthCache combines all of these with field trips in your area (and around the world) to create educational adventures for the whole family.
EarthCache explains:
- How is an EarthCache different from a virtual cache?
- EarthCaches are in effect a type of virtual cache. They have no physical container or log book. However, EarthCaches are different from other virtual caches in so much as they teach the visitor something about the site. An EarthCache is not just a scenic view or a locality. They present some lesson on how that place formed, about why that place is important scientifically or what that site can tell us about our planet.
- Why do EarthCaches have to be virtual caches?
- The object of an EarthCache is to learn something about our planet. The reward is the lesson, not the trinkets in the container. Also, many EarthCaches are being developed in places where it is against the law to leave a container, such as in National Parks and at Geological Monuments.
To participate, find an EarthCache you want to find and read through the assignment. Then find the site, find the answers to questions or otherwise determine the information required, and log the visit (often with a photograph of your team, the GPS and/or site, such as this).
The site also has additional educational resources for teachers. There is a FREE teachers guide to introduce EarthCaching to your kids. Learn how to create your own EarthCaches, direct students to creat EarthCaches or use exisiting EarthCaches in your classroom. You can download the whole document or by sections.
There are also EarthCache Lesson Plans. Teachers may use this application to upload, download, and rate Earthcache Lesson Plans. Click here to View general lesson plans.
Members will be able to view their completed EarthCaches online and can also collect pins (at a small cost) for reaching certain numbers found.
While the site says that you need a GPS to find the caches, there are some that require no special equipment. For instance, I found this incredibly informative EarthCache hunt about agates in Minnesota that directs participants to the Moose Lake Agate and Geological Interpretative Center located inside Moose Lake State Park. Coincidentally, our family visited this interpretative center just last month on a trip to Duluth. It sure makes me wish I had known about this site in advance!
There are also so many things that are learned at various sites. For instance, at another Minnesota EarthCache, the Big Spring EarthCache, you are asked to test the pH of the water coming from the cave and email the answer to why the water is either acidic or basic along with a picture of your team at the site.
With 95 EarthCaches in Minnesota alone, and thousands of others in states and countries all over the world, this is a wonderful resource to use while near home and on family travels.
