Outdoor Education is a popular section of the timetable, and covers a plethora of different activities. Pupils learn to climb, sail, canoe and even mountain bike. However, recently Mr Darius Bluck and Ms Anna Morgan have been exploring an altogether different activity: geocaching. Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game, using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates, and then try and find the ‘geocache’ (or container) which is hidden at that location. Proving a very popular event with the pupils, they are braving the chilly winter weather to get involved in the world’s biggest treasure hunt.
The geocaching community is rapidly expanding; originally an initiative created in America, the event quickly proved an online sensation and people from all over the world began to get involved with the treasure hunt. GPS technology has been a revelation; the accuracy and availability of the technology has meant that people from across the globe can navigate to precisely the same point. Geocache founder Dave Ulmer, testing the accuracy of the technology, hid prizes in the woods in Oregon, America, and then posted coordinates in an online forum. The idea quickly gained popularity, and communities from all over the world got involved, and the incentive now boasts three million geocaches, with hundreds of them in Berkshire – specifically, nearly 20 are in Shiplake alone!
Mr Bluck and Ms Morgan organised the activity for Shiplake pupils; the pupils are able to use the geocache app to follow clues to find ‘treasures’ which have been set up by other people. So far, pupils have managed to find three treasures on their journey, including a magnetic snail with a hollow inside. Inside this was a piece of paper on which the pupils signed their names, then replaced in the snail ready for the next group of geocachers to find. Currently, the team are looking to find more treasures within the area…
