Team VIPER wins the Geography Scavenger Hunt!

Post date: Jun 10, 2016 9:9:10 PM

Ready, Set, Go! Seven teams of undergraduate and graduate students participated in the Geography Department’s Scavenger Hunt on Thursday, June 2. Planned and executed by the Outreach Committee (Heather Frazier, Nina Bingham, Sari Blakeley, Mike Johnson, Susan Meerdink, and Rafael Ramos) the event was hosted to promote interaction among the geocommunity and other participants, and to celebrate the end of the academic year.

Featuring clues and activities all over campus, the participants had to combine team-work, strategy, endurance, and lots of enthusiasm. Some of the tasks included getting to one of the good surfing spots on campus, taking a photo with a duck couple, and even finding a sunken place where testudines call home!This Scavenger Hunt was for sure a competitive one. All the teams did very well and in the end there were some very close scores. Tying for 1st Place was Team VIPER (Alana Ayasse, Dan Phillips, Sarah Shivers, Zach Tane, and Erin Wetherley) and Spatial Forces (Thomas Hervey, Sara Lafia, and Georgios Technitis). 3rd place was awarded to the undergraduate Raster Masters (Chris Chien, Lucine Garibian, Ryan Linhart, Cole McLaughlin, and Andrew Westerman). These teams won a variety of prizes including: Geography T-shirts from the thirtieth and fortieth anniversaries, Geography Bags, $50 Bookstore gift cards, ESRI pens and notebooks, passes to the Natural History Museum and Sea Center, and Geography pencils. After finishing the scavenger hunt, the participants also enjoyed a graduate student poster showcase while eating Woodstock’s pizza.According to Sara Lafia, from the Spatial Forces team, participating in the Scavenger Hunt allowed her to appreciate our beautiful UCSB campus, and her coworkers at the Spatial Center, who also participated. “I’m really happy to have participated and hope that we can make it an annual department end-of year tradition”, Sara remarked. That is indeed an idea to look forward to.