4-H Members Find Their Way to Fitness - GPS Technology Leads to Treasure, Leadership

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. - Some Leavenworth County 4-H members have a new project:  treasure hunting.  They don’t need to be archaeologists, explorers, or pirates with dusty old maps. Thanks to the U. S. Department of Defense, a bit of relatively-inexpensive technology is all it takes to find trinkets, toys and surprises – perhaps right in their neighborhood.

“Geocaching is like a scavenger hunt,” said Beth Hecht, a 4-H youth development agent for K-State Research and Extension’s Leavenworth County office.  “It's kind of like a treasure hunt, and these treasures are hidden all around the world.  You go to Geocaching.com to find the waypoint, or the latitude and longitude.  You put that in a GPS unit, and it'll tell you how to get there.”

Geocaching is a hobby that takes advantage of the Global Positioning System (GPS) – a network of about 30 satellites, orbiting high above Earth.  The U. S. Air Force constructed the network, beginning in the 1970s, and the system became fully operational in 1993.  Three years later, President Bill Clinton issued a policy directive, ordering the system open for civilian use.  Today, GPS technology can be found on airplanes, ships, and automobiles and increasingly, in cell phones.  Those nifty navigation systems in cars, that tell the driver to turn left at the next corner?  They use GPS satellites—usually four of them—to pinpoint the location of the car, as well as the location of the destination programmed by the driver.

In May of 2000, a man in Beavercreek, Ore., buried a black plastic bucket containing books, food and other items, and then posted the bucket’s approximate location on the Internet.  In three days the bucket was found twice, and logged once.  That was the first recorded instance of a geocache; today, more than 800,000 caches are scattered across the globe.  The Geocaching.com Web site lists more than 5,000 in Kansas alone.

Hecht leads a team of 4-H members that focus on this and other technology, and the county invested in several GPS receivers.  High-end GPS receivers can be pretty expensive, but she says a good quality receiver can be found for less than $100.  One of Hecht’s sons is on the team—she says family involvement is inevitable.

“Kids are often the ones that get the parents into the technology,” she said, “but the parents are typically the ones that have to drive the kids.  So, whether they're going on a family vacation or they’re going to visit a relative or whatever, it's easy to jump on the Internet, check out that area to see where some caches are located, and have a little side trip.”

At a recent training weekend for Kansas 4-H members taking on leadership roles in the state Health Rocks! Program, Hecht and her team traveled to the Rock Springs 4-H Center to teach a crash course in geocaching.

“They set up a course.  They went out and made some marks on GPS units, programmed them, and taught these participants how to use the GPS unit, and how fun it is,” Hecht said.

There was no buried treasure that evening – just a series of colored pylons, holding questions on health, nutrition and fitness to be answered at each waypoint.  Hecht thinks this do-it-yourself angle holds promise for educators of all types.

“You can set up something at the park, create your own temporary caches.  The cache doesn't need to be a box, but it can be some questions--maybe about geography, or math,” Hecht said.  “A math teacher could set something up... when they get to the location, there's a problem they have to solve, that reinforces what they're learning in the classroom.”

GPS coordinates can also be used in GIS (Geographic Information System) applications, sometimes a component of mapmaking.  Hecht said this can inspire users to look beyond geocaching.

“That's when we start getting into the higher technology, on service learning,” Hecht added.  “They start to be able to help out their community, by using this technology and creating community maps about something that's important.”

But to get involved in the community, youngsters first need to step out of their front door.  Just as a videogame console can keep them glued to the sofa, so can a similar piece of technology lure them outside in search of treasure.  The exercise and fitness, Hecht said, is a bonus.

“Once they get out there, they get engaged in that piece of technology.  They don't even realize how much activity, physical activity, they had in just the past hour,” she said.  “The distance?  It could be from a mile, to a couple of miles.  45 minutes can go by really fast.”

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