Geocaching Event Connects Community to History, Nature

There were two ideals behind Avon's first ever geocaching event yesterday: motivating people to spend more time outside and connecting community members to the past.

Part of Connecticut Trails Day and a collaboration between the Avon Historical Society, Avon Land Trust and Unplugged Learning Project, the event included 30-40 participants who used GPS devices and smart phones to locate coded messages and trinkets hidden throughout Avon in an outdoor scavenger hunt. 

Helping lead the event, Avon High School students Michael Staroselsky and Matt Howard explained why it's important to help a younger generation see the value in nature.

Staroselsky and Howard are members of the Student Initiative at the high school—an organization which “reintroduces children to nature.”

Howard said the event Sunday was a first step towards getting residents out into open spaces and motivating them to become more active with nature.

“We saw today as a really good opportunity to come out into the community and just help people get outside,” Howard said. “That alone is a great success.”

Leaders of the event expressed a similar view.

Lee Wilson, a leader who guided groups to the different sites with his tablet PC, used the phrase “no child left inside” to describe what the event was trying to do. Community members used iPhones, Droids and Garmin GPS systems to locate the “caches,” but at least they were all out in open air, something of which Wilson approved.

“Here's something your kids can do and still be outside,” Wilson said, explaining that activities like geocaching can move people away from TVs and video games.

Wilson was optimistic about the longevity of the event, which will be organized again in the fall. 

“We've turned a couple people into geocachers,” he said.

Andrea Roach of West Hartford and her son, Brian, may be those converts which Wilson mentioned.

First-timers, the Roaches found out about the event through Connecticut Trails Day and thought it suited Brian's interests in mapping and geography.

Andrea explained that on family hikes her son is disinterested in nature and wildlife but fascinated by topography. Geocaching might be a good compromise between technology and outdoor exercise Andrea thought, adding that the activity was something she and her son would do again if it doesn't prove to be too costly.

 The connection between outdoor education and geocaching was clear, but Laura Young, an event organizer and volunteer with the Unplugged Learning Project and Avon Land Trust, said that another function of the activity was for people to recognize places of historical significance. 

Participants recorded caches at the old Ensign-Bickford lot where many of the original, red-brick buildings are intact and the Fisher Meadows area, ending the day at the Living Museum which hosts many of the “caches” at a nearby graveyard.

Young said that concluding the event at the museum was intentional. It was an effort to let people “appreciate what's here,” she continued.

At each site, participants wrote their names on small slips of paper inserted into film canisters and boxes. By including their own names, community members added themselves to a roster of many people who approached the site years before, making the connection to history very visible.