April 01, 2008
Bowling
Green, Ky. - The Kentucky Geographic Alliance (KGA) sponsored a Parent/Child GeoFest Day March 29 on the campus of Western Kentucky University.
The purpose of the GeoFest was to introduce parents/teachers and their children/students to the use of hand-held GPS units. The 20 participants were divided into teams for the competition.
For the younger children, treasure caches were hidden on campus and teams competed, using latitude/longitude coordinates, to be the first to find their caches. Older children were asked to program in coordinates, answer questions about the located points, and mark the points on a campus map.
First-place winners for the younger group were students in the Gifted Program from Temple Hill Elementary in Barren County, escorted by their teacher Debbie Sherfey. Winners Alex Morgerson, Tia Monroe and Shelby Wood were given compass key chains and earth globe balls.
First-place winners for the older group were Bowling Green High School students David Herrera and Jose Mosquera, who were led by teacher Travis Meserve. These winners received inflatable globes and GeoBee T-shirts.
Co-coordinators of the KGA, Scott Dobler in the Department of Geography and Geology and Kay Gandy in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction, plan to hold yearly GPS events that will be posted on the KGA website at www.kga.org.
For information about the Kentucky Geographic Alliance, email kga@wku.edu.
Photo captions: GeoFest winners in the younger age group were Alex Morgerson, Shelby Wood and Tia Monroe, students from Temple Hill Elementary in Barren County. They were escorted by teacher Debbie Sherfey.
GeoFest winners in the older age group were Bowling Green High School students David Herrera and Jose Mosquera. Their teacher is Travis Meserve.
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
For information, contact Kay Gandy at (270) 745-2991.
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