Fun (and Education) with GPS 

For more information, contact:  Joseph Kerski, Geographer, USGS, jjkerski@usgs.gov

1.  Set up a virtual geocaching course around the site of the fair.  Make the geocaches virtual so that they are finding things that exist permanently on the landscape - reading a number off of a sign, visiting trees, bicycle racks, buildings, etc. Build the whole thing into a fun and educational cohesive theme. I have some samples of an aliens theme geocaching and a revolutionary war geocaching on the following page:

http://rockyweb.cr.usgs.gov/public/outreach/gps.html

2.  Examine Anton Ninno's Fun With GPS article on:

http://www.monitoringtimes.com/html/gps.pdf

and have a look at Anton's online resources.  He is in New York USA and is one of the foremost authorities on GPS in education.  

3.  Buy the ESRI Press book by Don Cooke entitled "Fun With GPS", that is full of these and other activities.

4.  Load the ArcExplorer Java Edition for Education from ESRI on your laptops (or ArcGIS / ArcView or other GIS package) with an aerial and topo map of the neighborhood where you are conducting the activity.  Then have the students upload the points they collect on the ground. You might have them WRITE their names on the ground with GPS waypoints (with 100 meter high letters, for example) and then upload them on top of the aerials/topos.  Then in your GIS session, have a contest:  Whose name is the most legible?