071 Hide and seek

Day one began with the whole class buried in their phones. The Oasis is real. I brought in the globe and taped the equator back onto the equator. Only one student was able to come up with the term equator. And I checked. Only one. Two came up with longitude. No one knew anything beyond those two terms. I used the USGS earthquake map to illustrate the use of longitude and latitude. The Google Earth app on the Android based Smartboard didn't seem to have a setting to show lines of latitude and longitude. Openstreetmap was no better. 

I went ahead and provided a rudimentary overview of latitude and longitude. I knew that in the absence of the division administrative assistant that there would be no way to distribute the GPS units. So I used the Smartboard to introduce the students to GPS Essentials using a Slides presentation. I recommended that the iPhone users a) buy a real phone, an Android phone and b) use the Compass app. Compass in the free version cannot display decimal minutes.

Despite the El Niño drought, rain fell on Wednesday. Rain and blowing winds. My first inclination was to hunker down on the west side of the agriculture classroom building, but I eventually opted to head into the forest to the south.

Lunch was takeout on a newly laid generator platform. This was initially going to be the hide, but the platform is fully exposed to latitude followers coming in from the east. 

At first I thought I might locate behind a massive tree at the above coordinates. Given the strong wind gusts and downed timber in the area, I decided against sheltering there. 

I headed east through the bush, eventually spotting a small knob at N 06° 54.590', E 158° 09.347' with good views through foliage towards the east, north, and northwest. 

The view east allowed glimpses of the gym parking lot.

The view west included glimpses of the hydroponic facility.

Rain and wind were problematic in getting screenshots out to the class. No WiFi out there, relied on 4G to get the screenshots out. In the midst of this season of El Niño I had opted not to bring an umbrella, not even a towel, so I had difficulty operating my electronics with heavy water droplets falling from the leaves above me. I was out of the wind, but soaked to the skin. 

The first was for GPS Essentials users and for reference on Thursday, the second for iPhone Compass users.

By 12:30 Darx and Jazzlyn were in the vicinity of the hide. Down in the gym parking lot the latitude would be right, but the longitude was too high. Over in the agriculture coconut Grove the longitude would come up right, but the latitude was too high. They would walk back and forth between these positions unable to realize that the solution lay in the forest. 

Although I thought I might finally won and be undiscovered at 12:50, at 12:47 Daniel followed the latitude numbers into the forest arriving a mere two or three meters from my position. I heard him call out 590 and I knew he would not realize that he had found the hide. As I stood up, Daniel was facing away from me and speaking to Mandalee. Mandalee was the one who spotted me just behind Daniel. I didn't want to give Daniel a scare by saying anything. Darx was with them at this point - Jazzlyn has retreated to the gym. 

No other group found me. One was at IT, another at the bookstore. Mahea and Sheral were met near the bookstore.

This second group was also at the bookstore. A third group with members from Wone, was in the general vicinity, but I was unclear where they had appeared from. I chided one member for not having found me - students from Wone have been among the lead groups to find me. None of the other groups were west of the gym. The weather was challenging for this day and age in the islands, but really not unusual for Pohnpei.

The groups were operating from their phones - this approach is functional and works, provided I can get a signal to send out my coordinates. I would like to remember to follow up on how this went for the students. 

That both Daniel and I were at the same coordinates but not at the same location will set up the laboratory for Thursday.