Second Grade Travel Bugs

It's not often that I find time in my day to write two blog posts, but I am so excited about my travel bug project with second grade that I could not wait to write about it. This school year will mark the third year we will release travel bugs.

In simplest terms, a travel bug is an item that can be tracked online at Geocaching.com. Each travel bug (dog tag) has its own tracking number stamped on it. This tag is then attached to a small item such as a stuffed toy, key chain or luggage tag and placed inside a cache. Geocachers will move a travel bug from cache to cache in the real world, while we track its movement through an "online diary". Travel bugs can be given tasks or missions to complete. It is up to the owner of the bug to decide.

I will be releasing the travel bugs over the winter break in several caches nearby my house. Each week, when the students visit the lab we will go online and check their progress. We may find that the cold weather will keep movement slow the first few months, but we'll keep our fingers crossed.



















In case you are interested, here is a quick update of all the places travel bugs from the the last two years have been. The bugs have traveled more than 44,000 miles in all to date.

• Nugget (2009) has been in 11 states and is now in Southwest England.
• Lightning Bug (2009) has been in 7 states and is now in British Colommbia.
• Boogler (2009) has been in 5 states and is in Illinois.
• Mr. Frecklehead (2009) has been in 4 states and two countries. It reached its goal of visiting the Eiffel Tower twice.
• Firefoot (2010) has been in 3 states and is now in New Jersey.
• Curly Q (2010) has been in New York.
• Swirly Whirl (2010) has been in 6 states and is currently in Ontario, Canada. It reached its goal of visiting Sears Tower (a.k.a Willis Tower).
  
• Sparky (2010) has been in four states and is currently in Iowa.