Geocaching lesson about kindness

On Friday I received an email from the CYFERnet 4-H Travel Bug Race to let the girls' 4-H club know that their geocaching travel bug - 4-H Walker - won the race. [Here's some background info about race if you have no idea what I'm talking about] L. has been tracking 4-H Walker and calculating game points for nine months, so needless to say, she and her fellow club members were thrilled with the final results. Then last night as L. was writing a story for the county (4-H) newsletter (see below), we had an interesting conversation about this project and the lessons learned. Geocachers from all over the world (4-H Walker spent time on four different continents) picked up this travel bug and took the time to log it on geocaching.com per the rules of the game (one geocacher even posted photos, which is not required) and then moved it to another geocache to help the kids maximize their mileage for the race. No, this was about more than winning a race. This was a lesson about people. People who care about helping some kids from Maine that they've never met. People who care that playing a game by the rules is important. People who care that something small can brighten someone else's day. Yes, this project was about so much more than winning. This was a lesson about the kindness of strangers around the world. And in case you were wondering about the stats of the race, I'll let L. fill you in...

CYFERnet Travel Bug Race Results By: L. Almeida The CYFERnet Travel Bug race is over and our Club won first place! The second place winner was a club from Missouri and the third place winner was from North Carolina. Our club beat the second place winners by 3,920 points. Neither of the other team's travel bugs left the United States but our travel bug went to four different continents (and traveled 21,985 miles total). The 4-H Walker went around the United States in North America and then went to Switzerland in Europe for a while. Then it went to Aruba off the coast of South America and then it went to Japan in Asia and that's where it is now. There were 20 Travel Bugs in the CYFERnet race. The 4-H clubs that entered the race were from all over the United States - Maine, Oklahoma, Nevada, Missouri, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Iowa and Kentucky. I hope my club's travel bug keeps on going and I really want it to go to France someday. The geocachers who moved our travel bug from geocache to geocache were really nice to take care of 4-H Walker for us. We were lucky to have nice people moving our travel bug around the world to help us win the race. I will still keep track of this travel bug for my club and make reports every month at our meetings even though the race is over. This was a fun project for my club and for me.