Getting in touch with nature: geocaching

Last Monday we had out very first class excursion! We spent the morning hanging out at The Cascades, part of Garigal National Park.

It was great fun to get outside and get in touch with nature – even if it was extremely early on a Monday morning!

This activity saw the class participating in ‘geocaching‘. My husband – Lee – is a big fan of this activity, he pretty much makes the boys and I do it every weekend in summer. In fact, this excursion was mostly his idea – he thinks geocaching is a great way to get you guys out of the classroom and into the local environment. I reckon he’s right – classrooms can be damn boring! Anyway, here’s a definition of geocaching from the website:

Geocaching is a real-world outdoor treasure hunting game. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using GPS-enabled devices and then share their experiences online.

I had planted five caches around the Cascades walking track that our class had to find. The first large cache was a whole-group cache and within this cache was a series of coordinates for four mini-caches that each team needed to find.

It didn’t take long to find the whole-group cache thanks to the ‘assistance’ of Balin. Everyone got to sign the log-book and take a small trinket from the cache. From there it was time to split up and find the group caches. Partly because of my terrible instructions and a little bit of confusion about the coordinates, only a couple of groups ‘found’ their caches using their GPS, but the other two groups managed to find them with the help of Balin and Keenan.

Inside the mini-caches was a laminated card with a series of activities to be completed as a team. These tasks were designed to get you thinking about and describing the natural environment of The Cascades. You also needed to think about the types of people that have inhabited the area in the past and present and those who might in the future. The hope was that you would begin to appreciate what it means to personally connect/belong to the wider world, nature, community, your team and the class as a whole.

Here’s the list of activities:

1. Take a photograph of TWO significant features of this environment
2. Write ten adjectives to describe this environment
3. Write 10 verbs that describe actions that occur in this environment
4. Write a 100 word micro story that captures the mood of this environment
5. Write a description of THREE types of people that would frequent this place
6. Research the original people that lived in this place
7. Write a description of the behaviours of the original inhabitants of this place
8. Describe your connection to this place

I was really pleased with the way you guys took on the challenges of this excursion – even Axel went bush-bashing despite the spiders – and I am really looking forward to reading your finished work.

Here are some completed pieces that I have been sent to edmodo already.

Hannah’s micro-story:

The sun rises through the tangled trees, clawing at my already sun kissed skin. The smell of impure, bacterial water fills my nostrils and instantly a displeased aura radiates from within. This is not paradise. A serpent of black tarmac leads me onwards, deeper into this wilderness, deeper into the mess of Mother Nature. Spider webs sling across my body, flies encircle my face. Where is Mother Nature hiding the tranquillity in this hell? The serpent drops away, replaced with a hill littered with sun-bleached rocks and sand. Crushing my feet to the floor, I find the tranquillity in sound.

Bree’s micro-story:

Tranquillity oozes from the place I sit, greenery catching my vision in every direction surrounding me. Shadows dancing through the crevices made my tree branches above giving off the illusion I’m not alone. Reality leaving my thoughts as my imagination sets in; this place takes you to a new mind set with the sounds of water playing off rocks heightening a silent symphony of various insects and wildlife in the neighbouring foliage. Every second that ticks by displays the sun entering through cracks in the leaves. Echoing voices in the distance creep into my mind shaking my imagination back to reality.

Sunny’s adjectives:

– Quiet
– Crackling Branches
– Deep
– Evergreen
– Dull
– Flitering light
– Dense
– Hot
-Thick
– Massive

Here are some photos taken on the day by Jake and by me:

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