Flat Stanley Gets an Upgrade

Most people have heard of the book, Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown, or at least have been part of the journey. Heck, now there is the Flat Stanley online project, and yes there is even an "app. for that". Fourth graders at Coastal Ridge Elementary School have been participating in a Flat Stanley project for quite some time now. The students trace themselves on giant pieces of paper and create their flat self. They then get into contact with family and friends world wide and send their flat self on a trip to discover life in a different area of our world. Family members, friends, and others send back these flat students with pictures, stories and postcards to help students understand the different cultures, people and trends in these areas.

Last year, the fourth grade team decided to upgrade their Flat Stanley project and add an Internet component to it. The students learned about the sport of geocaching with help from the tech. integrator, Eric Lawson. Geocaching is a treasure hunting game played all over the world using handheld GPS units instead of treasure maps. Small containers are hidden throughout the world by fellow geocachers, and a description and clues to the whereabouts are then posted online at www.geocaching.com. Most caches are hidden by the longitude and latitude coordinates of the container, but some can have more riddles, clues or even waypoints to find before getting to the treasure. By plugging in these coordinates, the GPS unit can get a geocacher pretty close to the hidden container. It's just up to the finder to then spot the container. There is a great introductory video about geocaching on the website for more information.

Snowboard Duck Travel Bug

Geocache containers often contain trinkets, or school supplies, that fellow geocachers will trade for when they find a cache. There are also travel bugs located in some caches, which aren't meant to be kept, but rather moved along to yet another geocache trying to fulfill its travel mission. The 4th graders at CRES thought it would be a great idea to create a class travel bug and track its movement across the globe like their Flat Stanley characters. Some classrooms have even created their own student web pages to share their travels and the new cultures, people, and spots they have visited. They are very excited to see where both, their flat selfs and classroom travel bugs, take them this year. To check out a few from last year visit Miss Switzer's Class web site.