Democracy for Juniors: A Review of the New Badge

GSUSA just released this year's new badges.  For the record, I'm disappointed.  I don't think there is anything wrong with any of the new badges, its just that I think they tend to repeat the same themes we already cover well and there are so many areas the girls and leaders want to explore that aren't covered.  That being said, I'm going to have Brownies and Juniors this year, and it is an election year, so I thought I'd take a look at the new Democracy for Juniors badge.

Requirements

According to Badge Explorer, in order to earn this badge, Juniors need to:

Learn more about how your government works—from your town or city to the whole country.

1. Find out about local government

2. Find out about state government

3. Find out about our country’s legislative branch

4. Find out about our country’s executive branch

5. Find out about our country’s judicial branch

When you've earned this badge, you will know more about how government works—from your town or city to the whole country.

Volunteer Toolkit provides meeting plans for leaders, and this post is a summary of those plans.

Find out about local government

VTK recommends either visiting city hall or the mayor's office, or having a guest speaker or attending a local council meeting, either in person or via livestream.  It gives a short script to introduce the idea of local government and to help focus the girls on what they will see or hear.  

Find out about state government

The three choices given in VTK are to visit the state capitol, to learn about the current state governor and to write a campaign speech for a hypothetical gubernatorial candidate based on an issue important to you or to learn about both sides of an issue important to your state and then debate each side.  

Both of these steps are listed for the first meeting on this badge. The plan is for a 90 minute meeting but I do not see how they could complete both steps in one meeting.

Find out about our country's legislative branch

VTK provides a handout on how a bill becomes law.   I think I'd find the Schoolhouse Rock video instead, but after you teach the girls how a bill becomes law, you are supposed to show them an example of a bill and then they are supposed to try to write one.  Have the authors of VTK every looked at a bill?  They are huge.  I don't see how showing the girls a bill is going to help them write a hypothetical one.

The second choice is to fill in a map of the US with the number of Representatives each state has in Congress now. 

The third choice is to look at the number of women in Congress now and to compare it to the number of women in Congress in the past.

Find out about our country's executive branch

To learn about our country's executive branch the girls are supposed to research the difference between a president and a prime minister.  Another option is to research presidential trivia and use facts found to create a quiz game.  The final option is to do a poster by drawing a tree with three branches (for the branches of government) and then pasting leaves for the President, Judges, Supreme Court, Senate, House of Representatives, Vice President, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Agriculture to the right branch.  

Find out about our country's judicial branch

To complete this requirement, VTK suggests a guest speaker:  either an attorney, a judge or a social studies teacher.

My Comments

If you are planning on homeschooling kids this year I think this badge could form a good backbone for a civics curriculum.  However, I think it is far too much to attempt in two Girl Scout meetings.  Further many of the choices  sound like school 2.0, not a fun afterschool activity.  

The trips to City Hall and the Capitol sound fun and not too school-like, though arranging both could be difficult, depending on where you live.  I've seen enough council meetings to know that most won't hold girls' attention via livestream.  The guest speaker could be great or a real bust and you won't know until you do it.

The handout on how a bill becomes law looks like it came from a civics book. As noted above, I'd go the Schoolhouse Rock route, and I wouldn't show them a real bill until after they've written theirs.  The map exercises sound like homework, even if I could get the internet devices.

The only activity regarding the executive branch that I'd try at a meeting would be the poster.  The others are just schoolwork.  

As far as the speakers regarding the judicial branch, I just question how, without some background, the girls are going to absorb much, and as  noted above, unless you have a speaker you know has done this before, you could end up with a real bust.

In short, if I was going to try this badge, ideally, I'd do the City Hall tour and a tour of the capitol. I'd  play the Schoolhouse Rock video on how a bill becomes law and then let the girls write proposed laws.  I'd probably come up more leaves for the poster and maybe color code them.  I'm a paralegal, not a lawyer, but I can talk about the judicial branch.  It would take at least three meetings--two for field trips and one for everything else.