High-tech treasure hunt

A group of students at Crowders Creek Middle School played a very high-tech game of hide-and-seek Thursday at Historic Brattonsville

By Jessica Schonberg - Jessica Schonberg

McCONNELLS -- The school's geocaching club hiked the grounds looking for the perfect hiding spot for an ammo box filled with pencils, key chains and other small trinkets.

And soon, anyone can join the hunt.

Geocachers hide "treasures" called caches and then post the coordinates of the hiding spots on the Internet. Other geocachers then use handheld Global Positioning Systems to find the hidden treasures.

In this case, geocachers will have to use their GPS devices to find a series of clues, which will lead them to the final treasure -- the ammo box.

Geocaching is an active hobby throughout the world. There are close to 500,000 caches listed online at geocaching.com.

Kimberly Terry, a fifth-grade language arts and social studies teacher at Crowders Creek, picked up geocaching as a hobby from a friend. She started the geocaching club last winter and won several grants to purchase equipment.

"The main thing is the thrill of the hunt and actually finding something that's out there hidden," Terry said.

The club now has two groups of 14 and some eager alternates who will gladly fill in if a club member can't attend a field trip.

This is the first time the students have hidden their own cache.

"I think it's fun to go out and find a bunch of different things with your friends," said Elizabeth Vestal, a sixth-grader at Crowders Creek.

Once a person finds a cache, they can log their find online. The caches have log sheets so there is a record of who has been there.

The caches are not supposed to be moved from their hiding places.

Sometimes caches contain travel bugs, which a person can pick up and move to the next cache they find. The travel bugs can be tracked online. Geocachers also sometimes trade items from the caches.

Terry said the club is a great way for students to get outside and learn how to use maps, technology and how to understand latitude and longitude.

"I got into it and I thought, 'What a wonderful educational game it would be,'" she said.