Quest at the Harcourt Arboretum


Quest was the geocaching activity run for family groups during the summer holidays in 2009 at the Harcourt Arboretum, in collaboration with the Institute of Physics. Geocaching is an outdoor game in the style of a treasure-hunt: participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to locate hidden containers or ‘caches’. Each cache in the Arboretum contained activities related to trees and physics, such as measuring the height of a tree, and seeing what happens after lightning strikes a tree.

Quest proved a big hit with regular visitors to the Arboretum, but also attracted new visitors (nearly a third of Quest participants had not been to the Arboretum before).

Some quotes from participants:

It was a great idea and the kids absolutely loved it.  They are 4, 6 and 9, so it¹s quite an accomplishment to offer something that they can all enjoy together, working as a team.  Many thanks for the experience.’

We enjoyed Quest and using the GPS so much we bought a GPS of our own to go geocaching, so thanks for the introduction to a new family hobby!

It was really fun, and turned what would have been a rather short visit to a much nicer and more relaxed visit.  We all learned some fascinating things that we didn¹t know before.

It made a normally quiet walk into a big adventure for the children, yes, more please!