Tech-Taters

It is seven school days until IPW starts and the grade is ringing with conversation of what it is going to be like.  There were many choices this year, including Happening in Harlem which is an IPW all about Harlem.  Kids will get to explore the culture of Harlem and even eat in some of their restaurants!  Another one of the IPW choices is Black Rock Leaders.  Kids will be able to spend a week in Black Rock exploring the outdoors and the nature in the deep forests.  Those are only two of the many choices that kids might be in, all of them are going to be fun.  I can tell that this IPW year is going to be a good one!

I chose geocaching as an activity on the school trip to Black Rock (read about more it on a previous post) and I have completely fallen in love with it. Geocaching is when there is something hidden (it is called a cache), and it is logged as a GPS location. Someone else can download the file to their GPS receiver and go hunting for the cache.

Geocaching is a fun way to go on adventures in places that maybe you are familiar with or places that you have never been to. For me, it was interesting to go exploring Black Rock to find the caches hidden all over with my partner. We were looking for little pink strings that my tech teacher hid. My favorite place where one was hidden was under a little platform. I also liked the ones that were hidden in the forest. It seemed to add a little bit more adventure. I have always lived in the city and the big forest seemed so daunting to me. Also, there was the anticipation of looking for the cache and then the excitement of finding it.

Usually, there are little surprises to find in the caches. The good thing to do is either: keep the surprise inside the cache, or replace it with another little surprise. This way, if another person comes to hunt for the same cache, they will find something there. On the file, there might be a description. Always read that so you know how hard the cache is to find, how hard the journey to finding it is (slope, terrain), and it might tell you some extra things you need to bring. Maybe it will even give you a few hints.  Also, remember that compass! Unless you have a superhuman sense of direction, you will need a compass to go where the GPS tells you to go.

A GPS is a very cool device. It gets information from satellites in outer space, and it knows where it (you) is. You need to be outside though for it to get the signals. Then it has the destination marked, and it tells you where you need to go (eg. go northeast 100 degrees). When you need to go in a different direction, the message changes. When you get close, it says “arriving at point ____” and even then you still have to find the actual cache. Go to geocaching.com to find out more about geocaching, and maybe find a cache hidden near you to find! I personally know there will be one near you!

-Claire

On our recent overnight trip to Black Rock Forest, one of the activities the kids could choose from was photography. I was the teacher doing the photography activity, and what I decided to have the kids focus on (haha) was looking at the forest and seeing what caught their attention, and then trying to photograph it with a different perspective in mind. “Be prepared to put your body on the line,” I told them. I also suggested they think of themselves as an insect – what perspective of the forest might that insect have? I wanted them to consider the forest from different angles and try to capture the unusual. After each group spent some time wandering in the forest, they uploaded their photographs to the laptops and wrote out some words that their photos made them think of. I then had them choose their favorite 8-10 photos to create a video with using the Animoto site. It is easy to use, and looks great. Below you will see the video created by Clara, a student in my class.

We just came back from our over night trip at Black Rock Forest. Black Rock is a forest with wild life and lots of diverse and interesting plants. The bus ride was about 2 hours but time flies when you are having fun. Finally we got to the place were we would be staying, it was a lodge with two wings a Boy’s Wing and a Girl’s Wing. In each wing there were bunk beds and closets. Every one was with al least 5 people in one bunk room. The bunk rooms were named after trees like Cedar, Pine or Oak. in the middle was a common area were every one ate and after activities or hikes we gathered there. We were not allowed to wear our outdoor shoes in there. Then we went on a hike- there were 4 hikes to choose from. One of the hikes was ‘slow’ and there you looked around at the beautiful surroundings and really did not hike. Then there was ’Moderate’ which was a slow and easy hike. There was ‘Challenge’ which is a bit faster on a hard hill. Finally there is ‘Super Challenge’. In Super Challenge you basically ran and hiked 2 mountains. I did the Super Challenge and some of the people (like me) got lost at times but we followed the trail and eventually were with the group again. When everyone was on their hikes they had lunch. After the tiresome hike everyone changed and went to an activity. The activities were science, geo caching, water color, photography, trail clearing and the acorn activity. When we finally finished our activity we ate dinner. After we ate dinner we went on a 2 mile night hike. It was really scary because it was a windy night so the clouds were moving fast and it looked like the moon was moving. But finally we got to a camp fire. We had s’mores and sang songs and finally we walked home. We all slept and had breakfast in the morning. We had one activity then lunch. Then another activity and it was time to go home. Nobody wanted to leave but we had to. Everyone sadly said goodbye to Black Rock and we went back to our home sweet homes.

Toasting marshmallows for s'mores