EarthCache Best Practice

[+geoaware]

Often we are asked "what makes a good EarthCache?" We decided that when we reached over 5000 EarthCaches, that we should do an audit of all the active EarthCaches and pick out the very best. The list could then help people to see what makes a good EarthCache and, hopefully, work on developing EarthCaches with similar features.

 

Rather than do this ourselves, we coaxed six people from around the world - USA, Canada, Portugal, Sweden, Australia - to look through all the active EarthCaches prior to 1 May and come up with the top list. The group considered the level and relevance of the text, the use of diagrams, the logging requirements, references and useful links as well as other features.

 

It was a huge task, and yet, now we have the final list posted on the EarthCache website (www.earthcache.org). All who made the list should be extremely proud!

 

So, go and see if one of your EarthCaches made the list - but more importantly, go and see examples of what your peers feel are the very best EarthCaches.

 

Finally, I want to thank the six wonderful cachers who did this huge task. We are all in your debt!

[+Thoto]

It's a big honor for me seeing one of my earthcaches on this list (GCZ8H7)

Thanks a lot to geoaware and the whole earthcache team from Germany!

Thorsten (very happy )

Edited September 28, 2009 by Thoto

[+Ashallond]

I think this solidifies the opinion that TerryDad is awesome at making Earthcaches.

 

 

And one of them he adopted out to me. Wow. I guess I'll have to be a very good caretaker then.

[+Cav Scout]

If this was a earthcache it would be among the top 10 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...5f-95b8cab3541b

 

OOPs! I re-read the best practice earthcache nomination criteria and realized it was only about the write up and not the "WOW" visual effect. If there was a "WOW" effect earthcache award, this earthcache would certainly make it in the top ten.

 

To those who wrote up the really nice earthcaches listed as the top ten, Good job!

 

To those who place earthcaches that require me to hike, rappel, or climb to see something wonderful, keep them coming because thats what hikers like myself look for, the "WOW" visual effect.

Edited September 29, 2009 by Cav Scout

[+Konnarock Kid & Marge]

If this was a earthcache it would be among the top 10 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...5f-95b8cab3541b

 

OOPs! I re-read the best practice earthcache nomination criteria and realized it was only about the write up and not the "WOW" visual effect. If there was a "WOW" effect earthcache award, this earthcache would certainly make it in the top ten.

 

To those who wrote up the really nice earthcaches listed as the top ten, Good job!

 

To those who place earthcaches that require me to hike, rappel, or climb to see something wonderful, keep them coming because thats what hikers like myself look for, the "WOW" visual effect.

 

Like Cav Scout, we want to congradulate the 'winners'. Their ECs are certainly nice and if I was closer, I would want to find them.

 

I know this is going to sound like sour grapes and please beleve me, it is not but I hate these kind of things. I know it took a lot of work on the part of the judges and I respect that, but the result is not good psychology. Borrowing from a friend's anology, "it is sort of like having several children and telling one that he/she is your favorite!"

"The group considered the level and relevance of the text, the use of diagrams, the logging requirements, references and useful links as well as other features."

Reading the above quote, it seems like the emphasis is 99% on the WOW factor of the write up and not the WOW factor of the actual EC! Or maybe the question needs to be posed, which is the EarthCache, the EC page or the actual geological location?

Another quote, this time from the guidelines, The educational notes must be written to a reading age of an upper middle school (14 year old) student."

Now folks, after a short reading, do the EC TOP TEN sound like they are at the level quoted in the guidelines or are they slightly above it? Using accepted methods of language level measurements, they are at the college to college graduate level of comprehension! Again, thank goodness for Terrysdad and Daniel, I love them both, but their educational levels ain't at the middle school level! Guys, this is not an arguement with you folks!

With all due respect to geologists everywhere, and I have a lot of that, often people become turned off from submitting ECs and/or visiting them because of the demanded geological knowledge to either write the EC description or figure out the questions and answers. If I heard this once, I have heard it a hundred times, "it just isn't worth it!" That is the response I get when I try to encourage cachers to submit or find ECs!

Just two weeks ago, as a courtesy, I asked an EC owner permission to list another EC that was close to theirs. Do you know what response I got? This is a direct quote, " please go ahead, we actually took pictures and thought about submitting__________as an EC but we don't want to go through that again!"

The bottom line is what is the purpose of an EarthCache? Is it to have a write up like a well illustrated Masters or PhD thesis or to take folks to a truly nice geological phenomena and learn a LITTLE BIT about the local geology?

Marge and I have worked hard to find and submit some ECs. Admittedly some have much more of the WOW factor than others but we didn't do ANY of them for our benefit or to inhance our egos. We did them to share some of God's geological creations....period! The greatest compliment we can receive is someone saying, "we didn't know this was here and thanks so much for bringing us here!"

Right now, we have about 10 wonderful locations, including some fantastic rock formations, waterfalls, etc that we were considering submitting as ECs but this "TOP TEN" process doesn't provide encouragement to do so!

PLEASE...folks, if we are going to have a debate, let's not make it personal and start throwing pieces of sedimentary rock at each other. If you do, use shale, its softer! Thanks for your indulgence!

Edited September 29, 2009 by Konnarock Kid & Marge

[+MsJules]

This list has given me some ideas on tweaking some of my requirements. Thank you.

[+catsnfish]

A few weeks back, at an event, I gave a short seminar on EarthCaching. I began my presentation with; ”I’m not a geologist, but I get to play one when I visit EarthCaches, also I’m not a teacher but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.” That got the desired little chuckle, but thinking back on those statements, it pretty much sums up my view of EarthCaching.

It is the job of the geologists to study, measure, compare and try to understand and reveal what the Earth is showing us at a site. It’s the job of the teacher to relate the fruits of those studies and measurements to their students, with a goal of not only passing along knowledge, but creating an interest or if lucky, sparking a passion in a pupil to learn and discover more about their subject. It is the students who catch this spark that go on to become the next generation that seeks to advance our understanding of our world.

As EarthCachers we teach through the cache page, its information and the logging tasks. We try foremost to keep the information clear and understandable. If we can, we try to make it fun to read and use charts or photos to help visualize the lesson and grab the attention of the reader while preparing them for the visit. Then we have the field trip itself, where visitors gather data or find more information as they enjoy the site. And finally the quiz or test that shows that the pupil was paying attention in class and learned something.

The page is our point of interaction with the visitor; we have one shot at presenting our lesson. Too much information or too technical and we risk losing our students/visitors interest. Too bland of descriptions or lack of visuals on the page doesn’t reflect or encourage the interest and passion we want to share about a site. Pages don’t have to be a “Top Ten” in order to bring appreciative visitors to a site. You don’t have to be a “Teacher of the Year” to share knowledge and interest. Honors such as those are subjective but rarely meant to convey “this is how they all should be” or anything less is “not worthy” although sometimes they are taken that way. They are meant to inspire and encourage.

However you may feel about such examples, if you share your enthusiasm for the Wonders Of the World, great or small, to the best of your abilities, and people enjoy their visits, you have developed an EarthCache to be proud of.

When I visit an EC, there are some that are Wow and some not so Wow at first appearance. After taking in that first view, grand as it may be, comes the lesson, taking what the Earth has to show us and trying to understand her better. That understanding can come from a sedimentary roadcut or the Grand Canyon and preferably both. My wife and I often comment when on our trips “I bet the people who live around here take that (exposure/spring/outcropping) for granted and don’t even think about it.” We so often overlook the familiar in favor of the spectacular. I would imagine one reason for the EarthCache Masters program was to encourage people to develop the local, not necessarily spectacular features, into lessons. Two of my favorite EC’s that I have developed involve a manmade sandpit lake and another compares two types of dirt. You can’t get much more “down to Earth” than those. Yet the lessons are good and the logging tasks interesting, even more so, because they are ordinary sites that would normally be overlooked.

So I’m not a geologist, I’m not a real teacher, but I am enthusiastic about EarthCaches and I will continue to share that passion by developing, visiting and encouraging others to visit and develop EarthCaches.

[cezanne]

Often we are asked "what makes a good EarthCache?" We decided that when we reached over 5000 EarthCaches, that we should do an audit of all the active EarthCaches and pick out the very best. The list could then help people to see what makes a good EarthCache and, hopefully, work on developing EarthCaches with similar features.

 

I have taken a look at the list of selected earth caches. I am not happy with the fact that you refer to this list as list of best Earth caches. An Earth cache does not only consist of the cache page. The location and the experience at the location do also play an essential role (in my opinion the key role since if I just want to read about geological phenomena, I can read a book or view a TV documentation).

 

The group considered the level and relevance of the text, the use of diagrams, the logging requirements, references and useful links as well as other features.

 

Most of these criteria only concern the cache pages and not the Earthcaches as a whole.

 

 

I am missing criteria like whether a visit to an earthcache teaches me something I could not learn in the same way from a book or a film. The cathedral in Cologne (the site of one of the ten selected caches) is an interesting place (for many reasons), but I do not feel that this Earthcaches really teaches me something about geology I could not learn in the same way from abroad (do not misunderstand me, the cathedral is worth to be visited and I have been there).

 

I prefer Earthcaches where some tasks have to be undertaken which are instructive and where one can deepen one's understanding of geological phenomena in a practical way. Copying information from signs, measuring a length with a measuring tape and other trivial things of that type do not have this property I appreciate. The following Earthcache provides a positive example of a task that gets visitors really involved

with the topic of the Earthcache as they have to get active

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...78-9e113026e363

 

Moreover, I prefer Earthcaches where a phenomena are shown directly at their original place to Earthcaches where some stones have been brought to another place and are displayed there or are used in buildings, monuments or other constructions. On the same line of thought, I am not happy with Earthcaches that just lead to a show cave, show mine etc and where it is sufficient to visit the location from outside and not required to visit the location from inside.

 

It would be interesting to see a list of high quality Earthcaches (with more than 10 entries) that takes into account the experience at the location and does not over-emphasize the role of the cache description.

 

 

Cezanne

[Neos2]

It would be interesting to see a list of high quality Earthcaches (with more than 10 entries) that takes into account the experience at the location and does not over-emphasize the role of the cache description.

 

If you guys take up a collection to pay all my airfare and related expenses, I volunteer to go visit every single EarthCache on the planet, and tell you which ones I like best!

[+Cav Scout]

There several high quality earthcaches in Kentucky you can go and see, unfortunatly you cant drive up to them, you will have to hike .

 

Why not start with Half Moon Rock earthcache (GC1AH81) in the RRGGA or do the 4 mile hike to Sand Cave earthcache (GC1TEXN) at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park. You can meet me at the trailhead to Sand Cave earthcache on the 17th of October. I will guide you right to the spot. You can tell me personally if you like that one or not after you see it .

 

 

It would be interesting to see a list of high quality Earthcaches (with more than 10 entries) that takes into account the experience at the location and does not over-emphasize the role of the cache description.

 

If you guys take up a collection to pay all my airfare and related expenses, I volunteer to go visit every single EarthCache on the planet, and tell you which ones I like best!

[+Konnarock Kid & Marge]

We have been there and borrowing from my favorite EarthCacher, "it was like a drive-by micro on a guard rail!"

Sorry, that's an inside joke and unfortunately, the joke is on me! Actually it was a log given on one of our Spring ECs by a very snotty cacher.

Seriously, Papafuz and I have the honor to be FTF on the Sand Cave. You talk about the WOW factor, it gets five stars on that scale.

Once in a while Cav Scout does it right!

 

There several high quality earthcaches in Kentucky you can go and see, unfortunatly you cant drive up to them, you will have to hike .

 

Why not start with Half Moon Rock earthcache (GC1AH81) in the RRGGA or do the 4 mile hike to Sand Cave earthcache (GC1TEXN) at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park. You can meet me at the trailhead to Sand Cave earthcache on the 17th of October. I will guide you right to the spot. You can tell me personally if you like that one or not after you see it .

 

 

It would be interesting to see a list of high quality Earthcaches (with more than 10 entries) that takes into account the experience at the location and does not over-emphasize the role of the cache description.

 

If you guys take up a collection to pay all my airfare and related expenses, I volunteer to go visit every single EarthCache on the planet, and tell you which ones I like best!

[+danieloliveira]

I have deliberately left this topic well enough alone as I have two EC's on that list. One I would tend to agree with but not so much the other. In any case I would like to thank Geoaware and the panel of judges who voted me in. Thanks a lot guys (and yes, they were "all guys").

 

I would also like to extend my congratulations to all those who made the list but I would really like to congratulate all EC developers for their courage and their commitment to sharing a little corner of the blue planet with everyone who dares to seek. Thank you all.

 

I have to agree with Konnarock kid and Marge's that maybe my geological knowledge is slightly above some others but I have seen; during the review process, some really neat and well constructed EC's that were NOT written up by geologists or anything of the kind. I would say that my advantage stems from the fact that while others see a scenic setting, I immediately x-ray the location as to why it is like that. I guess it comes from training.

 

I am a picture fanatic and nothing makes me more hungry to search out an EC if there's just a little peek of what is to come on site. So yes, I am all for pictures in EC pages. They should not give away the answers but they should prepare the geological/geographical setting, so to speak.

 

I have been toying with an idea now for about 2 years and that is to create an EC that would serve as a tutorial for others to create their own listings. I would obviously be biased by the Portuguese setting and geocaching community but I would like to write one up with a sort of added "post-it" notes on the side with short explanations as to why the text says what it says or the pictures show what they show. Sites are plentiful now all I need is the time.....

[+Carbon Hunter]

I have deliberately left this topic well enough alone as I have two EC's on that list. One I would tend to agree with but not so much the other. In any case I would like to thank Geoaware and the panel of judges who voted me in. Thanks a lot guys (and yes, they were "all guys").

 

I would also like to extend my congratulations to all those who made the list but I would really like to congratulate all EC developers for their courage and their commitment to sharing a little corner of the blue planet with everyone who dares to seek. Thank you all.

 

I have to agree with Konnarock kid and Marge's that maybe my geological knowledge is slightly above some others but I have seen; during the review process, some really neat and well constructed EC's that were NOT written up by geologists or anything of the kind. I would say that my advantage stems from the fact that while others see a scenic setting, I immediately x-ray the location as to why it is like that. I guess it comes from training.

 

I am a picture fanatic and nothing makes me more hungry to search out an EC if there's just a little peek of what is to come on site. So yes, I am all for pictures in EC pages. They should not give away the answers but they should prepare the geological/geographical setting, so to speak.

 

I have been toying with an idea now for about 2 years and that is to create an EC that would serve as a tutorial for others to create their own listings. I would obviously be biased by the Portuguese setting and geocaching community but I would like to write one up with a sort of added "post-it" notes on the side with short explanations as to why the text says what it says or the pictures show what they show. Sites are plentiful now all I need is the time.....

 

Wow - now THAT would be a useful tool for us.

I'd love to have something like this to help me - and I know many other cachers that are always asking me for advice - but it would be great to have a resource like this.

 

Encouragement given and hope to see this resource forthcoming.