Geocaching Taught at Schools
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- Created on Thursday, 06 December 2012 15:13
- Written by Peter Lipomi
LYNDON - Treasure hunting is not just for pirates.
Students at Riverside School in Lyndon are Geocaching to learn and find boxes of treasures across the area.
Dr. Laurie Boswell, Head of Riverside School, has brought Geocaching (pronounced geo-cash) into her curriculum to teach students about math and the science behind Global Positioning Systems.
"We talk about the mathematics involved with it, and the fact that there are satellites orbiting the earth right now and so long that I have three of them visible to my GPS, then I can triangulate my location," Dr. Boswell said.
Once the GPS location of the cache is received from the Geocaching website, searchers attempt to go to that location and find the box. When the box is found, participants sign the log and can take a piece of treasure then replace it with one of their own.
The "seasoned" Dr. Boswell, who said she has found over 1,800 caches, says sometimes the boxes will disappear because of mistreatment or weather. Which might explain why News Seven's Joseph Peters was not able to find one.
"We did have a geocache placed over by the covered bridge near Lyndon Institute. When we had the storm (Irene)... the geocache actually washed down the river," Boswell said.
Despite the difficulty that she may encounter in finding Geocaches, Boswell looks to add to the adventure in the area, placing new caches to be found in the spring.