Michael Hobson, left, and Nate Goldberg look over their global position satelite units in downtown Coos Bay on June 6, prior to their geocaching field trip. They are two of the 21 students who were involved in Coos Bay school’s Tech Cadets program, with others from Blossom Gulch Elementary School and Millicoma Intermediate School, prior to the end of the academic year. World photos by Lou Sennick

Recently, 21 student tech cadets from Blossom Gulch Elementary School and Millicoma Intermediate School went geocaching during the afternoon on June 6. Using hand-held GPS units, the students broke into teams to find the businesses participating in the project, using only their geographic coordinates.

This is the first time they tried the urban trip. In the past they have geocached in Mingus Park. At each of the 16 correct businesses, students received an artifact to confirm they arrived at the right location. Items included pens with the store's name on them, necklaces and keychains, as well as plenty of candy. “These kids made out like it was Halloween,” said sixth-grade teacher Sharon Muffett. “The idea is to get cadets to help other students with technology in the classroom,” Muffett said. An entertaining treasure-hunting game for those with GPS units, geocaching adds a digital twist to treasure maps of old - but the concept is the same. Each adventure is designed to lead people to a cache of treasures, which can include coins, trinkets, CDs tools, games, books or anything else. Tech Cadet geocaching trips include students from elementary schools, as well as Millicoma, Sunset Middle School, Marshfield High School and others. The activity originally caught on in 2000, when GPS units were first available to the public. There used to be only a few players but now the game is now played by more than 1 million people, according to information on the official geocaching Web site http://www.geocaching.com.