“Anacachers” Take Hide & Seek to the Next Level

Several Anacapa students have been enjoying a new club  – 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 attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. The container stays in place, but the cachers sign a log and upload “I Found It” information to the Geocaching.com website.

The Club is spearheaded by science teacher, Megan Nesland; 9th grader, Alec Sherwin; and his Dad, Lanny Sherwin. The game is played by finding caches that others have hidden or hiding caches yourself. The “Anacachers” have found 25 caches so far and have hidden 5 of them. A cache can be a simple Tupperware container, a 35 mm film canister, or any item that is durable and waterproof. Creativity is key in geocaching – both in hiding and in searching.

How popular is geocaching? There are over 2 million geocaches hidden worldwide! Besides being fun, geocaching promotes recycling materials, learning new technology (GPS), teamwork, and persistence. Another important part of the game is CITO, or “Cache in, trash out”. Picking up trash and respecting the environment is an important part of the activity.

Geocaching is also a great way to motivate students to get out into nature. For example, virtually every hiking trail in Santa Barbara has dozens of caches hidden along them.

Anacapa Geocaching Club members are: Alec Sherwin, Sam Bernstein, Haydn Brooke, Josh Colahan, August Baxis, and Diego Villarreal. For more information about geocaching, visit www.geocaching.com. Happy hunting!