Treasure Hunt – Geocaching

Before Viewing

1. Here are some words that will come up in the video, called “Treasure Hunt – Geocaching”. Are there any words you don’t know? If so, ask your teacher.

cache discover navigate receiver coordinates GPS (global positioning system) logbook trails treasure

2. Your teacher will lead a “word association” game for these words. Write any interesting associated words next to each word in the list.

3. Now look at all the words on your list, and the associations you made. What do you think “geocaching” means? What do you think the video will be about?

During Viewing – Split Viewing

1. Get into pairs, and decide who is “Person A” and who is “Person B”. For the first scene, Person A watches and listens to the video, but Person B can only listen (head down, or eyes covered). When your teacher stops the video, you have 2 minutes to ask questions and share information about what you heard/saw.

2. For the next scene, switch roles (Person B watches and listens; Person A only listens).

(continued on back)

After Viewing

Choose Activity 1, Activity 2, or Activity 3.

Activity 1*:Choose one of the genres below, and write about the video you just watched. (Try to use some of the vocabulary words from the “Before Viewing” activity.) Diary entry. Imagine you’re Courtney and you’re writing about your

geocaching adventure. Letter. Imagine you’re Courtney and you’re writing a letter to your friend to

tell him or her all about geocaching. Adventure Story. Write about Courtney’s treasure hunt in the woods as an

adventure story. (Add some new creative events.) Comic book. Write and draw about Courtney’s treasure hunt as a chapter of

a comic book. Newspaper article. Write an article about Courtney and geocaching for your

school newspaper. TV or Radio Commercial. Write a script for an advertisement for geocaching

equipment or geocaching tours.

Activity 2*:Design your own TV game show with “geocaching” and/or “treasure hunting” as the theme: What would contestants have to do? What are the rules? Where would it take place? What kinds of challenges would there be? What would be the prize for the winner? What (if any) would be punishment for the losers?

Activity 3:Design a game that uses maps of your school and involves a treasure hunt. Part of your treasure hunt should involve asking or answering questions about the Treasure Hunt – Geocaching video you just watched.

* After-viewing activities 1 and 2 adapted from:Edutainment Resources, Inc. (2006). PencilBot Season One Video Collection: Teacher’s Manual. Honolulu, HI: Edutainment Resources, Inc.

Notes for the Teacher

Before viewing

Before choosing one of these “Before viewing” activities, ask students if they have questions about any of the words on the list.

1. Word Association. Depending on the size and level of the class, divide the students into groups (ideally around 8-10 students per group for higher intermediate students, or around 4-5 students per group for high beginner to low-intermediate – a number that makes it fairly easy for them to come up with associated words).a) Tell the students their task is for each group member to say a word that they

associate with a vocabulary word in the list (for example, for “trails”, a student might say “hiking”). Each student in the group has to say a different associated word. One group member writes all their team’s words.

b) Option 1: Do word association for one vocabulary word at a time. Have teams race, and the fastest team to finish gets a point. After doing this for each of the vocabulary items, count up the team points and declare a winner.

c) Option 2: Give a time limit (for example, 30 seconds) for each vocabulary item. After going through the whole list, have each team count up how many total associated words they were able to make.

2. Story-telling. In small groups, students create a story. Each student tells one sentence of the story, and has to use one of the vocabulary items in their sentence. [Note: they do not have to use the words in the order they are presented, but can choose any word on the list that has not yet been used.] They continue until all the vocabulary items have been used.

During Viewing

Option: Use small groups (3 or 4) instead of pairs. Depending on class dynamics, it’s possible that the amount of sharing could be much great with more students involve in each group. (However, it is worth noting that it is also possible that being in groups allows less active students the opportunity to avoid participation and responsibility for sharing information.)