Beka is a performer and puppeteer and runs her own street theatre company, Frolicked. She works part time as a Project Officer for a music education charity to support her theatre company. Our contributor Katie Scott interviewed her.
What is Geocaching?
What is Geocaching? It’s like a real-life treasure hunt and is a great way to make a walk in the woods just a bit more interesting!
Julianne Robertson explains what it is and how to do it.
What is it?
Players use a handheld GPS device or a smartphone to look for a set of co-ordinates near to wherever they are and find the geocache (or treasure!) hidden at that location. These are usually a small container of some kind with a logbook and ‘treasure’ inside – this can be anything, like a little toy, some stickers, a badge, a pretty stone – basically anything small enough to fit inside and be worth finding!
Sounds good! How do I get started?
Go to the website www.geocaching.com and register – it’s free to sign up. Then you put in your postcode and you should see a list of all the geocaches near to where you live. Choose one and you’ll get the co-ordinates you need to put into the GPS, as well as a description of the area and clues about how to find the cache.
Are geocaches always hidden in the woods?
No – there are geocaches all over the world and they are usually put in places which are important to the person hiding them. Some are hidden in forest areas, others are in local parks, or city streets – even underwater! There are also different sizes of geocache and a range of difficulty – you should probably start with one that’s easy, at least to begin with!
What do I do when I find one – can I keep the treasure?!
Yes, but you should replace anything you keep with something of equal or greater value. You should also write about your find in the logbook and when you get home log your experience on the website too, so that others know the cache is still active.
Can I hide my own cache for others to find?
Yes, once you’ve found a few caches you’ll know what makes a good geocache and hiding place, and you might want to create your own! There are lots of guidelines on the website about how to do it.
Now you know about geocaching – go and try it! It’s a great activity to do with your family or a group of friends. Once you’ve found one, you’ll want to find more!
Julianne Robertson is a freelance journalist, based in Dundee. Her background is radio news, and she now writes features and reviews, specialising in parenting, faith and religion, events and lifestyle issues.
A Day in the Life of… a Structural Engineer
You might be starting to think about which subjects you want to study at school, perhaps you have even had a talk about careers.
One thing that is quite tricky to assess is what a job is REALLY like. Some jobs are quite easy to imagine, such as working as a teacher, because we see the work that teachers do every day. Some jobs are a bit of a mystery. What does an engineer actually DO? And what do you have to study, to become one?
Today we are introducing a new series of articles, which will show you the typical working life of people in many different professions. If you know someone who has an interesting or unusual career, ask them if they would agree to a short interview with us to show kids a day in their life.
We were lucky enough to interview Tasha Scott, who was happy to explain to us her studies and career as a Structural Engineer.
An Aspiring Champion for Team GB
Meet Lilly Williams-Howell, a talented young skater from Prestatyn, in North Wales.
Lilly, who is now 11 years old, has been skating since age 7, and is now very close to realising her dream of representing her country. After a lot of training and practice, she now has the chance to skate at an international competition for Team GB. We talked to Lilly a little bit about her skating, and her hopes for the future.
Science News For Kids – Water Found on Mars
Until 3 billion years ago, Mars was a wet planet much like Earth. It had land, an extensive atmosphere and an ocean that covered two thirds of the northern hemisphere as well as smaller bodies of water. But significant climate change caused the water and atmosphere to boil away, leaving Mars a dry and arid planet. Or so we thought… then came the news from Nasa – Water found on Mars!