Rent/Borrow Class Set of GPSr Units?

[Green Bay Paddlers]

Hello! Our new ninth grade curriculum this year includes twelve weeks of geography. I’m wondering if you folks know of any outfits that rent/loan GPSr units? I’m thinking with 30 kids in a class, and three kids per unit, I could easily put ten units to good use for a day. I would use these for all five of my classes, and probably use them with other teachers’ classes as well. My guess is that we would use them for a week.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks,

Jeff

[greyhounder]

Try the local university or tech school. They may have units available. Or the parks department.

Bec

[Green Bay Paddlers]

Hello!

I’m back with a follow-up question.

We raised $300+ through fundraising and rented ten Garmin yellow E-Trex units from Lowergear.com. Our lesson went off without a hitch and the kids learned a great deal. Myself and two other 9th grade geography teachers used the units with their classes. Roughly 400 students were exposed to the uses of GPS through a fun outdoor geocaching activity.

I’m writing a grant for us to purchase 10 GPS units. The E-Trex worked beautifully, but the units all had to be programmed individually by hand. I would have loved to have used EasyGPS.

Now that we’re looking to purchase ten units, I’m asking for some advice. What are the cheapest, USB programming-enabled, accurate, and intuitive units on the market? If you could buy ten units (and spend roughly $1,000+) for a high school geography class, what make/model would you buy?

By owning the units, we’re able to spread out the use of the units versus being limited to a one-week rental period. In addition, we can check units out to kids for use on their hiking/camping/hunting/fishing trips. It really can be a great way to get kids to learn to use GPS.

Any help would be appreciated. Many thanks!

GBPaddlers

[Mister Greenthumb]

We use Etrex Legends and they can easily be purchased over the Internet for less than $100 each. They are easy to download into and can be hand programmed quickly. It took one 3 minute lesson to teach our 11 year old grandaughter to use it. It seems the kids can grasp all of the techno gadgets quicker than the adults. The only drawback that we have found with these units is loosing a signal when under heavy cover.

[hogrod]

@Green Bay Paddlers wrote:

Hello!
Now that we’re looking to purchase ten units, I’m asking for some advice. What are the cheapest, USB programming-enabled, accurate, and intuitive units on the market? If you could buy ten units (and spend roughly $1,000+) for a high school geography class, what make/model would you buy?
GBPaddlers

The best buy for a USB enabled, accurate unit is the Etrex Venture HC, you can buy one from newegg.com for $130. besides the USB connection It has the newer high sensitivity chipset, color screen and you can even load 24mb of maps to the unit.
The etrexH(the new high sensitivity chipset yellow) is $89 dollars on newegg but is a Serial connection and doesn’t come with the cable. So besides having to buy the serial cable, you would also need to also buy a serial to USB cable too, so there is almost as much cost with the cheaper model.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16858108268

@Mister Greenthumb wrote:

We use Etrex Legends and they can easily be purchased over the Internet for less than $100 each. The only drawback that we have found with these units is loosing a signal when under heavy cover.

The legend at less than $100 does seem like a good deal, but since it’s really an old unit(came out around 2001) money would better be spend on a unit with the newer chipset(better signal in the woods). not to mention it only has 8mb of storage for maps, serial connection, and worse battery life.

[Mister Greenthumb]

@hogrod wrote:

The legend at less than $100 does seem like a good deal, but since it’s really an old unit(came out around 2001) money would better be spend on a unit with the newer chipset(better signal in the woods). not to mention it only has 8mb of storage for maps, serial connection, and worse battery life.

I agree with all of Hogrod’s points, however with rechargeable batteries we can keep the units on all day and still have enough charge for the next day. Why don’t you try to find some geocachers in your area that would be willing to go out with you and let you try some of the different units that they’re using. We would have opted to upgrade to better gps’r recently, but instead chose to get a gps for in the suv and this has increased our capabilities more than a hand held upgrade may have.

[Team Deejay]

In this situation, I would buy 30 Etrex H units from walmart.com at $90 with free shipping (you do have to pay the sales tax unless you can claim an exemption), plus one or two data cables off of Ebay for around $7. If I was buying only ONE GPS, I think I agree with the Etrex Venture at $130, but for a class of kids, you need don’t need the fancy electronic compass, etc.

[marc_54140]

The YELLOW E-Trex can be loaded via computer cable. Do it all the time at Bubolz Nature Center in Appleton.

[hogrod]

@Team Deejay wrote:

In this situation, I would buy 30 Etrex H units from walmart.com at $90 with free shipping (you do have to pay the sales tax unless you can claim an exemption), plus one or two data cables off of Ebay for around $7. If I was buying only ONE GPS, I think I agree with the Etrex Venture at $130, but for a class of kids, you need don’t need the fancy electronic compass, etc.

Just to corect you, the venture HC doesn’t have an electronic compass. The only fancy part of that GPS is it can have 24mb of loaded maps, base map of the whole world, and has a color screen. it can’t even do auto-routing maps, just topo maps/home made maps. Because it has an actual USB connection this would be the cheapest gps I would ever consider.
It also has a click-stick(directional pad enter button combo) for navigating the units menus, making it SO MUCH easier to use than the standard etrexH.

If I was going to buy the Etrex H models, I would buy them off newegg.com because you wouldn’t have to pay any tax, just shipping. The issue I see with the Etrex H, allot of people who uses serial to USB adapters or serial cables at all have issues with them. unless you have a need for a gps with a serial connection, I would never buy one that didn’t have an actual USB connection.

Really it boils down to is it worth $300-400 more for all the units to get a more user friendly interface(click-stick) and a real USB connection, and units that actually comes with the standard usb cables?

[Green Bay Paddlers]

Wow – I have to say THANKS for all of the great information in such a short time. I look forward to others’ input should anyone else have some thoughts on the topic.

I’m going to be writing the grant this winter and will be doing the homework on the units you have described. In addition, I’m getting in touch with our district’s insurance liaison to see what they have to say about damage to the units during a class lesson or (more likely) during a period of time we check out the units to the kids for the weekend.

We check out library books to kids, but they’re on the hook if the book is damaged. I really don’t want parents telling kids they can’t check out a GPS for fear of having to replace it should trouble or misfortune befall the unit. I’ve got a bit of homework there.

I’m a casual geocacher (100+ finds) and would love to extend the experience to kids and their families.

Thanks again for all of the replies.

[Green Bay Paddlers]

Hello all! I wanted to let you know that the grant proposal found approval and we are now the proud owners of 10 new Garm Etrex H units with rechargeable batteries.

We will be using these in our classes this fall. I have a GPS activity that we did with our rented units last fall. It involves a satellite image of the area and basic Latitude/Longitude lines. Students need to plot (in the classroom) where they believe the caches are going to be located (on the satellite image) using the lat/long coordinates. Then, it’s off to the field for the rest of the exercise. We had a lot of luck with this last year. This year, we’re probably going to include a wooded area as well.

Many thanks for all of the suggestions!

Jeff

[Author]

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