Geocaching Lesson

8-10 yrs old

11-13 yrs old

Geography

Math & Economics

Students will use a map and three dimensional coordinates to solve equations using Order of Operations and save the village from the evil wizard.

Submitted By: Mark Grundel

Reworked From:

February 26, 2019

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Skills

Communication
Critical Thinking

External References

Geocaching World

This is the downloadable Geocaching Map to the accompanying lesson.

Supporting Files

How to build a basic lesson

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to use parentheses, brackets, or braces in numerical expressions, and evaluate expressions with these symbols.
Students will be able to solve simple and complex expressions and equations while recording calculations with numbers, and interpret numerical expressions while evaluating them.
Students will be able to understand that positive and negative numbers are used together to describe quantities having opposite directions or values

Guiding Ideas

Essential Questions:

How can we evaluate expressions and equations?
How do we navigate on a three-dimensional coordinate grid?
Why is it important to follow an order of operations?

Formative Assessment Questions:

What strategy are you using to find a solution(s) to this problem?
How could you organize your thinking/work when solving this problem? Why is that an effective strategy?
What do you need to do first to evaluate an expression? Why?

Student Activities

Explain to students that today they will be playing a cooperative game to solve multi-step equations, using Order of Operations. The teacher may choose to place students in individual worlds, or play in pairs or small teams. It is not recommended that more than 4 players play in a single world.

Students will enter the GeoCaching world. The world is set to Survival and Easy, but this may be adjusted to a gamemode and difficulty level of the teachers choosing.

Students will speak with the NPC and click on the link. Students will follow directions and solve the equations.

Students will navigate between the three hidden caches and solve simple challenges along the way.

The teacher may choose to make the challenges more difficult by adding enemies or additional parkour challenges. If the coordinates change, be sure to grant yourself the Worldbuilder ability and change the coordinates on the slates.

Students will document their learning and take a picture at each cache as evidence of completion. Students should put a brief reflection in their portfolio.

Students will reflect on the activity at the end of the lesson. The teacher may choose to use some of the Formative Assessment Questions above as recommendations.