Disney/Pixar I wasn’t a very good Boy Scout when I signed-up at 6 years old. It wasn’t that I didn’t have fun traipsing around the woods — instead, I spent most of my time daydreaming about my brand new computer, a 1982 ZX Spectrum.
Nearly 28 years later, the Boy Scouts of America have figured a way to merge the two worlds of digital and nature with the launch of a new badge for geocaching.
What is geocaching you ask? It’s like a treasure hunt, but instead of an old tea-stained map with a giant red X, geohunters use GPS devices to find hidden containers, or treasure if you’re a Boy Scout.
There are several ways to play and you don’t need to be a Boy Scout to jump in. The simplest form of the game is to go to a Web site like geocaching.com and search for containers through ZIP code. For example, a quick search near the New York Times building shows 2,579 different geocaches nearby.
Once you click on a location, you’ll see a set of coordinates for the location in the form of a latitude and longitude, which will look something like this: N40 46.768 / W73 58.145. Then, using a GPS device, you can venture out to locate clues and eventually find a container, which usually has something hidden inside.
It’s the perfect way to blur the line between technology, serendipity and the great outdoors.
For the Boy Scouts it offers a tool to engage video-game obsessed kids while educating them on the practical uses of technology. As Scouting Magazine writes, this type of game teaches “how GPS technology works,” geolocation terms and coordinates and some of the “precautions necessary to have a safe time while searching for geocaches.”
The new geocache badge is appearing during he 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts.