"Computers are useless.
They can only give you answers."
Pablo Picasso



He's got a point!  And when I first started interviewing Gold Award girls under the old requirements, I would often get a print-out of city or county stats.  This was in answer to the question, "what's in your community?" Well, I got an answer from the computer, but it didn't really address the question.

Now, in the new Take Action requirements, it's stated differently.  There's opportunities to do a mind-map of the community, showing the interlinking circles and how they touch/affect each other.  There's also an opportunity to "look at your community."  This goes waaay beyond computer generated answers of statistics.  

What the Gold is asking the girls to do is to dive deep and address the question.  Use their eyes and look at where they live, not at a computer screen.  See what is around them, and let them choose what issues mean something to them.  Perhaps it's the homeless issue.  Seeing real live people on the street, some with kids, some in wheelchairs can help our girls connect to the issue.  They are there to make a lasting change in a community. Those people are part of that community.

Computers can help with the research:  how many communities have the same need.  Or with getting details about service areas/boundaries.  But a computer is not likely to grab the heart of a girl, and create in her a desire to help someone else.

And we need our girls to connect to the issue in order to use their passion to complete the Gold Award Take Action Project.  It's a ton of work these girls are being asked to do, and they'll need determination, support from you(!) and support from their team to make it work.  Let the computer be a tool to use to advance a cause, as it will never be the piece that touches a girls' heart and gives her the gumption to make the world a better place.

Is this really GOLD?

"Now Freedom (Girl Scout, former foster child) is working to earn the Girl Scout Gold Award by collecting backpacks for underprivileged youngsters up through high school.

"Older foster children need help, too, she says, which is something most people don’t recognize. And she’s dedicated to helping “foster cares” because most “never know where your next meal or set of clothes” will come from."

Well, darn it!  This was on the GSUSA blog, and it is soooo not representative of a Gold Award Project, on the surface.  This is a great service project that Freedom has chosen, and she is obviously passionate about it, having been a foster child herself.  But is this ACTION?

Remember, we talk about the parable in training:  "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day..." That's a service project. Well-meaning. Hearfelt.  But it only makes a difference for a day or two.   "Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime."  That's more Gold-style.  Create a solution that is measurable and makes a sustainable change in the community.  That is what TAKING ACTION is all about!

We want our girls to think critically.  And we want them to have to do some research. They need to start with the issue, and then understand the root cause of the problem.  And THEN they need to do research to find out what's already being done to address this issue? Who or what agencies have a mission-driven goal to solve the problem?  Can the girl work with one of them?  Who can she identify to partner with? 

This is the critical thinking piece that most girls will want to gloss over, because it's maybe a little difficult.  Or they're lazy thinkers. Or they don't have time. Or...whatever excuse they can come up with!  But remember, this is the time for these girls to use and develop their skills, even if it takes time.  These high schoolers are college-bound, and the Gold Award experience is one that can help them as they move forward.

So, lean on them to do the work.  We want them to be proud of the work they're doing, just as much as we are soooo proud of them.

 

Brainstorming for GOLD!

"When Campbell was brainstorming ideas for her Girl Scout Gold Award project, she knew she wanted to do something to help the environment and help combat the increasing mosquito problem in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

"I have always been interested in biology and environmental science, so when I was brainstorming for my Girl Scout Gold Award, I went to talk to Jeremy Starritt, the environmental services manager for the city of Frisco, about needs that our city had," said Campbell, an alumna of Frisco High School.

After discussing different ideas with Starritt and hearing about the numerous cases of West Nile virus found in the DFW area, Campbell decided to bring bat houses to Frisco's Beavers Bend Park in hopes of reducing the number of insects that can carry diseases such as West Nile virus."

Wow, nice job!  This was in the GSUSA blog on August 15.  Campbell had a general idea about helping the environment, but didn't know how to connect it to a Gold Award Project.  Soooo....she went out to discover the need!   The need she discovered was about combating mosquitoes.  She identified the need, and then went out into the community to see what was being done.

She narrowed her research to mosquitoes and bats, found an agency with the same concerns/interest, and partnered with them to take action to address the issue.

This is the PERFECT way for our girls to start thinking about their Gold Award Projects!  Think about where their passion is/what they're interested in, and THEN go out and figure out what they can do to address the issue. How they can use their passion to gather others to help, teach them and then lead the team through a successful TAP. (Take Action Project)

What a great example of a TAP done well.

This is a Gold Award Project?

The Baltimore Sun reports that Alyssa Judson and Molly Wheltle, members of Troop 3122 for about a dozen years each who will age out of the Girl Scouts at the end of the school year, earned their Girl Scout Gold Award for completing separate service projects in the fall that aided underprivileged Baltimore City residents.

For her project, Alyssa Judson made a series of presentations to youth in Baltimore City and Baltimore County about homelessness in the city.

Additionally, she collected a dozen blankets and sleeping bags at St. Mark School and worked with Scouts in Troop 984 at Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church to make six 6- by 6-foot quilts and seven fleece blankets. The blankets and sleeping bags were later donated to Southwest Emergency Services in Arbutus.

Using media both old and new, Wheltle helped make First Communion extra special for 85 girls at the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Highlandtown.

The senior at Mount de Sales Academy advertised her collection drive of First Communion dresses in five parish bulletins, on a Facebook page and website and through word of mouth. By the end of the project, she had far exceeded her goal. "I was really excited we got 85 dresses. I expected 20," Wheltle said.

(from the GSUSA blog)

Truly, I hope that these collection projects were not ALL the girls did!  But if we believe the Baltimore Sun....

Alyssa's project sounds more robust, and I'm hoping that she started with the issue of homelessness, and then drilled down to the root cause, and THAT is what she made her series of presentations about.  Did she stress the importance of developing more safe shelters for women on the street?  address funding needs from local government?  provide safety info for women and families who are homeless?  create a mentoring/partner program of organizations with one demographic of the homeless population.  Truly, I hope she did something that was meaningful to her, but that was also measurable and sustainable.  Collecting the blankets was a nice add-on, and I certainly hope that very few of her hours were spent on collecting.  Using her leadership should have taken up the majority of her project hours.  And I wonder how she planned for sustainability?

Molly's project sounds like all she did was collect First Communion dresses.  A very nice service project, but it falls short of being Gold quality.  I wonder what her issue was?  And how she identified a root cause, and then created a plan to address it?  I hate to think that she just saw a need to collect the outfits, and stopped there.  I'm hoping that she worked with her Project Advisor to go through the Standards of Excellence on page 2 of the Gold Award Guidelines to create a robust Gold Award Project.  I do hope!

Learning - a life skill

“Learning how to learn is life’s most important skill.”

Tony Buzan, author and educational consultant

 I like that quote this morning!  Learning how to learn is certainly a skill to be developed early, so that we can use it our whole lives.  And as we get older, we take trainings that have us identify how we learn best, and how we can reinforce new information to replace the old.  (And we commiserate together about how easy it used to be!!)

But for our Gold girls, they are still learning how to learn.  They’re trying to figure out how to remember information for a math test on Tuesday, how to put together a science fair project and how to strategize to improve their soccer games.  While one goal is to pass a test, another is to figure out how to make the data stick, then write about it in a coherent way, and how to take the information, synthesize it and come out with a well-reasoned analysis. 

As part of our GSLE program, we are helping these girls to do just that!  We are asking the girls to identify an issue. It could be one that they already know about, or it could be one that they find as they investigate their community.  As advisors, we need to help guide them in this process and engage their critical thinking as they LEARN about an issue and the pieces that go with it. 

As we know, and the girls will find out, no one issue stands alone!  The root issue to address may be homeless kids on the street, but investigation and community mapping will identify other issues: lack of education and healthcare, mental illness, local economic situation, lowered expectations, etc.  The Gold girls must take all this info and LEARN how they can address the issue, create a plan and take action.

Again, this is more than a collection project, though providing toiletries, clothes and blankets could be a part, this is a TAKE ACTION project that needs to be more.  As advisors, we need to guide the girls to reach higher and Take Action now.

They also need to learn how their efforts can move on into the future.  How what they did can be sustained by others, upon completion.  And they need to take what they’ve done and learned to address the more global perspective. 

We’re asking our girls to put their passion into a project that makes the world a better place. What a great thing to learn!

Bronze into Gold Take Action

Did you see this in the GSUSA blog on September 29^th? 

“Girl Scouts’ palm oil use is very small, but our voice is big,” says Amanda Hamaker, GSUSA’s Manager of Product Sales. “Palm oil is an important product to the world’s food supply, so we believe promoting sustainable manufacturing principles is the most responsible approach for Girl Scouts.”

This action follows a five-year campaign by two teenage Girl Scouts from Michigan to make Girl Scout cookies rainforest-safe. The girls, Madison Vorva, 16, and Rhiannon Tomtishen, 15, learned as part of their Girl Scout Bronze award project that the habitat of the orangutan is threatened by deforestation caused by palm oil production.

“Madison and Rhiannon have done exactly what Girl Scouts teaches girls: find a cause you care about, connect with others, and take action to change the world,” says Hamaker. “They are shining examples of leadership in persuading a 99-year-old American icon to take on a serious global issue.”

WOW!  They learned about the issue as Juniors as they worked on their Bronze award, and then kept at it until the change was made!  This is truly a Gold Award caliber project, especially if they had some other pieces that the article didn’t talk about.

Who was their team?  If they were pointing out such a BIG issue to such a BIG organization, they would have needed scientific experts on their team.  Perhaps they involved an Eco-Club at their school and garnered school district support? 

How did they lead?  Did they identify the issue, then map out one plan to make the change?  Probably not!  The girls probably had stops and starts, revisiting of the plan, connecting with more partners to strengthen their request.  This could include Congressional members and lobbying groups or other National Eco organizations.

Did they educate others? Sure seems like GSUSA heard them.

Did they have a measurable outcome?  YES!  Watch for the changes on the cookie boxes.

Did they address global concerns?  Oh my, but YES!

Theses girls have truly discovered, connected and have taken action to make the world a better place for EVERYONE. Kudos to them! Can hardly wait to see what they’ll do for the Gold….