Cub Scout Geocaching activity help

[rtrezrsnhvn]

Good morning,

My son’s Scout leader is looking to put together a fun activity at the summer picnic at the end of the month and thought about geocaching. We are going to be in a local park and I was thinking of placing some temporary caches using various types of containers. I doubt that we will have gpsr available for everyone, so I’m thinking it will be more of a treasure hunt/scavenger hunt than geocaching. I’m thinking about putting together a series that includes clues or letters to a final. (The park has some caches, but I’m a little leary to release a bunch of scouts in a pretty open area – especially since we recently adopted 2 of the 5 caches in the park.)

I’m wondering if anyone has already done this and either has some notes or suggestions. I’m thinking I want the clues, etc to be Scout related, but haven’t thought it all the way through.

If you’ve done something with Scouts or kids and would be willing to share, I’d greatly appreciate and ideas, words of wisdom, handouts, etc so we can make this successful and fun.

Pm or sharing here would be awesome!

Thanks in advance!

[JimandLinda]

I just did 2 circuits for Rosendale Biology class. Don’t even mention the permanent caches or you will have tons of maintenance!
Just put out temps and list the starting coordinate. Plenty of places to hide them in that park!

Good luck and have fun! 😀

[rtrezrsnhvn]

@JimandLinda wrote:

I just did 2 circuits for Rosendale Biology class. Don’t even mention the permanent caches or you will have tons of maintenance!
Just put out temps and list the starting coordinate. Plenty of places to hide them in that park!

Good luck and have fun! 😀

Thank you for confirming my instinct on the permanents…. That park is usually crawling with all kinds of people and I’m not really up for the hassle either 😉

Scouting has a badge now when they become Boy Scouts, so I may point them in that direction for information. There is even a booklet from the BSA.

[CodeJunkie]

RT – If you’d like a sampling of containers, let me know and I’ll drop some off for you to borrow.

Nano
Bison Tube
Ammo Can(s)
Pill Bottles
HCH containers 😆
Peanut Butter Jars

[CodeJunkie]

Another idea might be to let them “camo” some containers for you for your own arsenal. Grab some camo duct tape and various containers and let them have at it using their creativity. This is a good way to tie in the hiding aspect of the sport also knowing that without hiders there isn’t anything to find.

I’d also address the “tread lightly” aspect which I know is already part of the program, but a good way to tie an outdoor activity to what they’re learning.

You might mention that within x miles of the park there are y caches also (and 5 within the park itself), but you don’t have to give the specifics. If they’re interested they’ll get out to GC.com and look up the details.

[gotta run]

I have done geocaching several times with groups of scouts ages 11 and under. Here is my general program which the kids really enjoy. (Meaning, they ask when they can go again.)

The tough part is that there’s a lot that is abstract–invisible coordinates, satellites in the air, all that stuff. Also, only one person can use the GPSr at any one time. So keep it simple, relate it to things they already know, and ideally get extra GPSrs if you can.

Small groups work best–3 scouts–but I have done groups of about a dozen.

Prep:
– Set up temporary caches, ideally the same number as the number of participants you will have in each group that goes out. I do not use the permanent caches because I don’t want to disturb them and because I usually don’t make the temp ones that hard to find. I always chock them full of stuff but it depends on your budget or what you have on hand in the geo-box. You might also put in a log sheet. I’ve done check boxes too if I knew who was going to be there ahead of time.
-Mark waypoints for big landmarks in the park on your GPSr–pavillion, grill, ball court, etc. This is for training, so make them close to your gathering area.
-If you can and if the group is a little older, make printouts of your GPSr screen showing navigating to a waypoint. This makes it easy to pass one to everyone beforehand to explain. Often I just give them to the parents if the boys are younger.

Day of:
-I explain how every spot on the planet is marked by an invisible “X.” Depending on the age of the kids they will understand lat/long. The last group I had, I even had a boy take over and start explaining. You never know. The GPSr helps us find those Xs.
-People hide boxes with goodies to trade all over the planet on one of those invisible Xs. Find the X, find the box, get the stuff. Here’s a sample of different size boxes, etc. Look at this nano cache, isn’t that crazy? How could you even find that, yada yada.
-The GPSr only tells you that you are there and not where the box is hidden. So we will need EVERYONE to help when we get there to help look where a box might be.
-I then usually have them use the GPSr to naviagate to the various waypoints in the park I set, taking turns. They can see where they are headed, and compare it to how things look on the screen. See how we are following the line from the arrow (us) to the X?
-Each boy takes a turn with the GPSr. This is your chance to talk about staying on trails, leave no trace, etc. Also you can build in compass skills here by combining it with paper trail maps. i.e., we’ve come to a fork in the trail. What direction do we need to take? That kind of stuff.

Oh yeah, if they are Cubs, it’s really great if you give everybody a geocaching patch at the end for their red vests! The cheapest I’ve found are 69 cents online at patchsales.com.

http://www.patchsales.com/patch/20870/buy-custom-and-stock-geocaching-embroidered-patches.html

On the Left Side of the Road...

[RSplash40]

I’ve done the same thing for our webelo’s, in part to get the mile walk in for some requirement.

The council has a handful of etrex’s so i borrowed those. I put out 9 temp caches(9 scouts) in a loop and loaded the gps’s with all 9 so I didn’t have to worry about which went to whom. The boys were split into 3 groups of 3 with 2 parents. Each group started at a different point for 3 caches but we all ended up passing each other on the loop.

I also made up a print sheet with the coords, container description, approximate location on the loop with google maps and a picture of the hide as the idea was when they found it they were to bring it back to the shelter. I gave this sheet to the adult and said “if you get stuck..”.

At the end I had a big ammo box in the bushes near the shelter with the bsa geocaching patch (the non merit badge one) and a council camp dog tag and just said your gps now points you to those bushes.

I didn’t cover much on how geocaching works ( a couple of parents are vacay-cachers which helped) everyone said they had fun and didn’t even know they got their last requirement in.

[rtrezrsnhvn]

Soaking all this stuff in – Thanks a bunch! my gears are turning 😀

[bartrod]

I’ve done most of the activities above with kids too…all great ideas. Another thing to try to make them understand that the gps device is not real precise is to take them in an open field, give them all the same set of coordinates for a spot in that field, and a flag or marker to place in the field where they think X marks the spot. When they see how scattered the flags are, they’ll realize there can be a 0 -30 ft. difference or more. Good luck…have fun 😀

Oconto...the birthplace of western civilization:)

[Astro_D]

I believe the Bay-Lakes Council has GPSrs available for Scout units to use. Might be worth a call down there to see.

[shackss]

Very helpful planning some geocaching with my Pack to this summer. THanks!!!

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