Exploradoras

//**Our Geocaching Story **// by Lauren Casey & Maritza Perez It was a lovely afternoon in mid-October, the 13th to be exact. The Campbell University campus was bustling with students rushing to and from class, eager to return to their beloved beds and one true love: Netflix. On an ordinary day I am usually one of those students, wanting nothing more than to get out of class early, go home, and eat Cheetos. But this was no ordinary day. It was one of those rare days when I did in fact get out of class early and was able to experience an unfamiliar phenomena sometimes referred to as free time. It was during this free time that two of my friends and I decided to go on a grand geocaching adventure; we call ourselves “The Exploradoras.”



“Have you ever heard of geocaching?” Maritza asked Nicole.“No, what the heck is that?!” Nicole replied with a puzzled expression on her face. “It’s this really cool thing we’ve been learning about in our social studies class. "It’s sort of like a worldwide treasure hunt. I think we should try it today!” I exclaimed. “Okay!” Nicole is always up for an adventure. We began by pulling up the Geocaching website and typed in our zip code to search for hidden caches near us.  “There are several caches on campus!” Maritza noticed. Next we all downloaded the Geocaching app to our smart phones and set out to find our first cache.We also had a real GPS unit in case our app did not work.

The first cache we looked for was called the “Camel Cache: Kivett.” There was a coded hint which we deciphered to say: “Cache is a film canister in a tree hole.” “Let’s check the big tree in academic circle” Nicole suggested. After a lot of searching around the tree, the Exploradoras found their first cache!



// The next cache was the “Camel Cache: Bell Tower.” This cache troubled the Exploradoras for many days. “ // // “This cache is hidden in a GRATE place!” I repeated the clue over and over again when Maritza realized that it was referring to a sewer drain. Once we figured that out, we continued to struggle until, just before giving up and going to the car, I spotted it tucked into the drain, resembling a bolt. //

// Next we went to “Camel Cache: Saylor Park.” We need right away that we would have to go to a different side of campus since Saylor Park was in the name of the cache. Once we read the clue for this cache, we were quite perplexed. “EGGE412” simply made no sense. The GPS on our phones looked like it was taking us towards the picnic tables at first, but as we walked by them we still had a significant distanc //// e remaining. Eventually we were at the corner of Saylor Park and all we saw was a lamppost. However, there was a small tan box attached to the post and we noticed something. // “That has EGGE412 printed on it!” squealed Maritza. We opened it up and there was our next log. We signed our names and then moved on to our next cache: “Camel Cache: Well.” By this time it was dark outside and was getting hard to see. The Geocaching app led us to the well beside Powell Hall, but no matter how hard we looked we weren’t able to find it. “I guess we will have to come back tomorrow,” I sighed. “Agreed” Nicole and Maritza said tiredly. The next day we ventured back to the well and were able to quickly locate the hidden cache.

Afterwards we headed off to our final cache, “Camel Cache: The Fighting Camels.” The Exploradoras were working off of their professor’s idea that the cache must be hidden somewhere on a bench outside of the Convocation Center. “Dr. Roukema was right!” exclaimed Maritza when she felt a small bump on the underside of the bench she was sitting on. “It’s magnetic” Nicole observed. “We found all of our hidden caches!” I was so excited. We did a small victory dance and then went home to talk about our fabulous adventure.

Our Lesson Plan