Teachers around the world are using GPS technology and geocaching to teach geography, history, science and other subjects. Picture your 12 year old coming home from school, excited; he proudly claims his travel bug is in a cache 4,235 miles from here on a bearing of 047 degrees.

Words keep streaming from your child: "The Kingdom of the Netherlands was formed in 1815. In 1830, Belgium seceded and formed a separate kingdom. The Netherlands remained neutral in World War I, but suffered invasion and occupation by Germany in World War II. A modern, industrialized nation, the Netherlands is also a large exporter of agricultural products."

"The Netherlands is slightly less than twice the size of New Jersey..."

You get the picture, and so do hundreds of other kids, parents and teachers. Teachers around the world are using GPS technology and geocaching to teach geography, history, science, and other subjects.

Sixth grade students from the Grainwood elementary school in Prior Lake, a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, are part of this ever-widening concept. They recently created a geocache and dubbed their little niche of this experiment "RM246".

RM246 is part of a sixth grade educational project. The cache will be used to teach students the basics of GPS receivers and geocaching. In the near future, the plastic container will be replaced with an ammo box. At that time the cache will become a travel bug hotel.

The cache, although not visible from the classroom window, is located a mere 200 feet from the school building. Administrators and other teachers in the building are aware of the cache placement.

"Our room number is 246," begins teacher Karoline Warner, aka Grainwood.

"We started out with a basic discussion of geocaching and what it is like. None of my students knew about this [geocaching] before we started. After a local geocacher appeared as a guest speaker for the class, I discovered there were more students than I thought who knew people who owned a GPS."

The project includes plans to release a travel bug. Warner will have the class track the miles and locations on a map for students to follow throughout the year.

"I will have a group of students each week check our site to see if, when, and where our travel bug has gone. They will then record that on the map with a pin and string. Alongside the map we will be keeping track of the total miles traveled," Warner elaborates.

She continued, "I have many students who are very excited about geocaching. My goal is for students to have an understanding and appreciation for the technology, as well as the thrill of the adventure."

"Some of the students are still a little confused about what this game really is," admitted Warner.

"One thing that excited me about geocaching is how it is based on the honor system. People find the caches and write a journal entry and then take an item and deposit an item. That is a great lesson to teach students that there are still things in the world built on the honor system."

Warner believes that individual competition arising from geocaching is a great lesson for students, but she maintains that the thrill is in finding the cache and being able to be a part of a worldwide project along with other people.

The class may try to find other caches in the area, keeping a special watch for travel bugs that need to be moved. The group has already examined the other 17 listed caches in the area. Warner is encouraging students and their families to geocache on their own if they have a GPS.

When asked about plans to continue the lesson plan in future classes, Warner replied, "I will evaluate the success of the mission we chose and the input from my students this year. I would like to continue it for each year. If we add more caches, with different missions, I think it would be exciting."

The teacher is also hoping to make a connection with another school that is doing this same thing, "I think it would be great if both schools could communicate about their missions and maybe even race the travel bugs from one school to another. I would love for another teacher to contact me so we could correspond."

Mrs. S's 4th Grade Class was hidden 10/21/2003 in Massachusetts. Mrs. S's 4th grade class plans to see how many people find the box during the school year and they would like to know a little about the finders.

This class has also placed a travel bug to watch and they are competing with Mrs. M's class and Mrs. K's class.

Travel Bug 2, owned by Mrs. White, a teacher in Cape Coral, Florida, was born in Mrs. White's Cache Class . Hidden 2/23/2003, the cache has accumulated at least 93 logs.

The bug, one of 29 bugs owned by Mrs. White, has traveled 19,908 miles.

A Class Act was created by 11th grade American Literature classes at Red Lion High School in Pennsylvania. Those who locate it must write a favorite literary quotation, aphorism, or words to live by in their logs. The 67 logs (and words of wisdom) are shared in class. A student contributed each object in the cache.

PCMS Class Cache was hidden not near a school, but in a state forest by middle school students as part of a class project about GPS.

Mrs. Champion's Fourth Grade , in New Mexico, placed a cache that contains seven travel bugs. They are watching to see where the bugs go, tracking them on classroom maps.

In March, Today's Cacher published two stories about similar topics. Teach-in' Geocaching explains how a parent/cacher presented a seminar to teach a 4th grade class about geocaching and later designed a cache with the class.

Classy Cachers Amaze Teacher is another story in the same issue about how a cacher/teacher taught his music students about geocaching during extracurricular activities, resulting in a real surprise for the teacher.

In May, this magazine included a story about home schooling with geocaching, Today's Lesson: Geocaching.