They travel in groups, noses just inches away form GPS screen. Suddenly a boy shouts “I found it!”, grinning and walking away from the group.
The others focus on their screens. “Me. too!” shouts another a moment later, until all six kids are crowded around a tree, pulling out a plastic bottle painted to look like tree bark. It doesn’t seem like much from the outside, but everyone gathers around, eager to see what’s inside.
This is geocaching, a high-tech game played using coordinates (坐标) and global positioning systems to find hidden “treasures”.
It’s open to anyone—hiders or seekers—with a GPS and access to www.geocaching.com, where more than half a million users download and upload the coordinates of nearly 1 million hidden caches (储藏物) and write about their experiences in this worldwide hunt.
Although some adventures can take hours or even days, the contents inside the actual cache usually aren’t valuable—often just a book or a small trinket (小饰品).
But participants aren’t in it for the treasure. They say it’s a great way to exercise. Or it brings them to remote destinations or historical sites. Some consider it an extreme sport, looking for geocaches hidden in mountains or in other nearly inaccessible locations.
Jeffrey Howe, 41, sees it as an opportunity to take kids on adventures to unfamiliar places. The youths at the shelter mostly come form the city, but geocaching has taken them to parks, the suburbs, and, once, to a 498-meter-high mountain.
“Geocaching is a way to give kids the idea that there’s a whole world out there other than what they know from their home neighborhoods and video games,” he said.
How does it work? Log onto the Website and enter your zip code (邮编), then search for caches near your location. Although posted coordinates will take a GPS within about 4.5 meters of a cache, a good hide will require seekers to do a bit of hunting around. Caches can’t be buried underground, nor can they be hidden on private property (财产), in dangerous locations or in some national parks.
Posts written about the find—whether successful or unsuccessful—are an important part of the game, with users proudly recording the places to which they’ve traveled.
1. What is the meaning of the underlined word geocaching in paragraph 3?
A. A computer game played all over the world.
B. A TV series popular around the world.
C. An outdoor game of hiding and finding things.
D. A name of the latest GPS.
2. In geocaching, which of the following statements about players is NOT TRUE?
A. Players need to have GPS to play the game.
B. Players need to download the coordinates to find the hidden caches.
C. Players need to be young and strong to the play the game.
D. Players are asked to hide things in parks or other places most people can reach.
3. What is Jeffrey Howe’s attitude toward geocaching?
A. Negative. B. Objective. C. Uncertain. D. Supportive.
4. Many people like to play this game because __________.
A. they take pleasure in the process of the game
B. they like to visit historical sites
C. they want to find some treasure
D. they want to change their lives
