How to Use GPS Technology to Get Your Kids Outdoors

Strategies for Using GPS with Your Children in the Outdoors

1.   Making Tracks in Your Backyard (Observation)

This is a great activity for the middle or high school student. Let him or her pick a place in the out of doors that he or she finds interesting. Use a GPS unit to mark this spot so that you can return to the same place at different times during the year.

Encourage your child to keep a journal and write a story about the special place.

• He or she can draw pictures, take photographs during each season, and collect leaves, flowers, and seeds that can pressed and laminated in the journal to help tell the story of the spot.
• Over time, a record of observations can be created to allow comparisons to previous years.
• Consider adopting or planting a tree to mark the special place.
• Record information about the tree, such as height, circumference of the trunk, animal and plant life in the vicinity, and changes observed over time.
• Charts and graphs can show how the tree has changed over time.
• You can also record air temperature, wind direction, estimated wind speed, type and amount of vegetation cover on ground, soil temperature, soil color, and soil moisture.

2.  Making Tracks in Your Community (Problem Solving)

A GPS receiver can be used to mark a waypoint or a location of a famous landmark in your child’s community.

• Your child can record the number for this waypoint, its latitude and longitude, and a “clue” that will give the finder some interesting information about the landmark.
• Keep the “clue” or record in a safe place. Over time your child can add multiple clues to your community collection.
• The waypoint location information from the clue can be recorded into your GPS receiver and your child can give the following clue to his/her friends.
• This can become a great scavenger hunt or game with multiple waypoints and clues!

You can also do the reverse and create a scavenger hunt in which objects are sought from a list and kids record the GPS location of each object. After the contestants have found all of the objects, the GPS locations can be checked against a key to see how well everyone did on finding all of the objects!  This is a type of virtual caching that is called “waymarking."

3.  Trekking

Everyone loves a good treasure hunt! Here is a great way to make walks with your kids more engaging by creating a series of clues or planned stops.

• First, plan where your stops will take place.
• If you are in a special place like a park or nature center you may want to pick scenic spots, lesser-known trails, or interesting natural mineral locations.
• Use small containers such as film canisters and place the clues for the next stops.
• There should be about 5 to 8 clues along the way which should be easy to find.
• Each clue should provide a waypoint number in consecutive order and a latitude and longitude location.
• The final stop on the hunt will be the treasure!

4.  Geocaching

Geocaching is a new way to go orienteering and something that can be done all around the world. It is fun, great exercise, and can even help improve the environment.

• In geocaching, someone hides a box or a cache and notes its coordinates or position online at http://www.geocaching.com. The website often lists other clues and grades caches by difficulty.
• A GPS unit can be used to find the box or cache. While it sounds quite simple, the caches can be difficult to find because the GPS unit only gets one close to the cache location.
• Inside the cache, which is usually a sealed rubber container or an army ammo box, there will be a logbook to sign and date and an assortment of “treasures.” The finder can take a treasure, but is to replace it with another small item.

• People who have visited the location often post information on the cache. These narratives can be very helpful when choosing a cache to visit.
• Many geocachers have a geocaching backpacks. Fill your backpack with the GPS unit, pens, a local map, bug spray, a variety of small items for the cache, a small first aide kit, binoculars, a garbage bag and gloves, and maybe a small notebook.
• The “Cache In and Trash Out” effort encourages people to remove any litter they come across on their outing. Geocachers have carried out dozens of bags of trash from public places since this movement began.

Other Great GPS Resources

EveryTrail is a free online web 2.0 platform that allows hikers, backpackers, and other outdoor enthusiasts to visualize and share trail trips using GPS coordinate data, digital photos and location-based notes overlaid on interactive maps. Visit http://www.EveryTrail.com.

Waymarking is a virtual cache that exists in the form of a location. Depending on the cache "hider," a virtual cache could be to answer a question about a location, an interesting spot, or a task. The reward for these caches is the location itself and sharing information about your visit. A virtual cache should be out of the ordinary enough to warrant logging a visit. Visit http://www.waymarking.com.

An EarthCache is a special place that people can visit to learn about a unique geoscience feature or aspect of our Earth. EarthCaches include a set of educational notes and the location or the latitude and longitude to find the place. Visitors to EarthCaches can see how our planet has been shaped by geological processes and learn how we manage these resources.  You can learn how scientists gather evidence to learn about the Earth. Visit http://www.earthcache.org/.

More Ways to Use GPS

Groundspeak Inc.

Using your GPS unit and/or written directions provided by the National Geodetic Survey, which are available for review by the public, you can seek out NGS survey markers and other items that have been marked throughout the country. Placed at the top of mountain peaks or in the pavement of a town square, many people walk by one every day. The interesting thing about benchmarks and horizontal control points is that a majority of them are located in plain sight (though largely ignored). Some of these points haven't been visited or documented in a very long time, so you may also be rediscovering long neglected objects of American history as well!  Visit http://www.geocaching.com/mark/.

Humankind Systems, Inc.

Here’s a cool idea that also encourages reading! After your kids have read their books, they can release them “into the wild” and track their progress online through a free book tracking website. According to Ron Hornbaker, President and CTO of BookCrossing.com's parent company, Humankind Systems, “Sharing books with your friends and neighbors is a natural instinct...what we've done is created a tracking database so that you can see where your books are, and read the journal entries along the way.” Visit http://www.bookcrossing.com/home.

Degree Confluence Project

The goal of the Degree Confluence Project is to visit every latitude and longitude integer degree intersection in the world and to take pictures at each location. The pictures, along with a narrative describing the adventures it took to get there, are then posted on the web site. This creates an organized sampling of the world. Another goal is to document the changes at these locations over time. Although we initially want to visit as many different locations as possible, don't hesitate to revisit a confluence if you're in the area. There is a confluence within 49 miles if you are on the surface of the Earth. To learn more visit http://www.confluence.org.

eBird

eBird, a project developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, provides a simple way for birds to be tracked in North America. Enhance the science learning of birdwatching by retrieving information online at any time on your family’s bird observations. The entire historical database can also be accessed to learn what other eBirders are reporting from across North America. The eBird database is used by birdwatchers, scientists, and conservationists who want to know more about the distributions and movement patterns of birds across the continent. Visit http://www.ebird.org/content.

Letterboxing North America (LbNA)

Letterboxing combines navigational skills and rubber stamp artistry in a treasure hunt-style outdoor quest to explore interesting, scenic, and sometimes remote places. The ancient custom of placing a rock on a cairn upon reaching the summit of a mountain becomes art with this activity. Most letterboxers carve their own stamps or team up with an experienced stamp artist. Virtual letterboxes, which don't involve going outdoors, solve clues on websites and find a stamp image or perhaps a virtual logbook. Visit http://www.letterboxing.org.

Travel Bugs

A Travel Bug is a tag with its own unique tracking number stamped on it. The tag is attached to an item - and becomes a hitchhiker – for which the owner invents a goal to be achieved. One Bug's goal may be to reach a specific country, or travel to 10 countries. Travel Bugs are tracked with the help of users who go online and "grab" them or receive them from other users. Each Travel Bug has its own on-line "diary" that mirrors its real world movements. To learn more visit http://www.geocaching.com/track/faq.aspx.

References

Business Services Industry. (2007). National study shows GPS Adoption Rates [Electronic Version]. Business Wire.

Louv, R. (2006). Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. New York: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

Spencer, C., & Woolley, H. (2000). Children and the city: A summary of recent environmental psychology research. Child: Care, Health, & Development, 26(3), 181-197.