My Virtual Meeting: Think Like a Citizen Scientist

My troop this year is Brownies and Juniors, and like many troops we are beginning the year online.  In planning this meeting I wanted something that all the girls could do together, something at required minimal supplies and preferably something that went toward a Journey.  I have one second year Junior and she/her mother are the type to want to do the Bronze Award.  They were in another troop last year and did not do a Journey, so I wanted to get that done, so she and anyone else who was interested could work on the Bronze Award.

I decided on Think Like a Citizen Scientist simply because it seemed to be the easiest Journey and because I could do the multi-level version with both groups.  I summarized the plans here.  

Before the meeting I posted the VTK handouts with the snails, as well as the map to our Facebook page so parents could print them. I told the parents that if they didn't have access to a printer, to let me know and I'd stick a set in the mail.  One person requested them and she got them.  I asked the girls to cut the snails apart, and, before the meeting to spread them around the room.


I also went to Badge Explorer and downloaded a printout of all the Brownie awards and another of all the Junior awards.  I told the parents to let their daughters look at that, but recommended that they not print it  I asked each girl to pick out a badge she wanted to work on in this level.  The final pre-meeting work was to get dressed.  I asked each girl to come to the meeting with two tops on, one of which could be easily removed while maintaining decency, a hat or easily removable hair accessory, and an easily removable necklace or two (like Mardi Gras beads).

I have six Brownies and only three attended.  I asked the Brownies to come 15 minutes before the Juniors so we could talk about their badges and what they wanted to do.  It was a pretty short conversation so we chit-chatted until the Juniors arrived.

We started with the GS Promise.  I thought about teaching a song, but chickened out at the last minute.  I have a lousy singing voice and was going to use a video, but between the lag time and everything, I just decided to skip both it and the icebreaker game I had grabbed from VTK. Maybe next time.

I told the girls that we were going to learn about Citizen Science which is when ordinary people make observations and send their data to real  scientists.  We were going to practice observations.  I had each girl stand up in front of the camera and show off her outfit.  She then moved out of camera range, changed something about her outfit and then came back. The girls had to guess what she changed.  This was an adaptation of the Quick Change game on VTK.  When they finished I asked what one of the first girls had changed, and of course they couldn't remember.  I asked them what they would have done differently if I had told them at the beginning that they were going to have a very important test on what the girls had changed.  One girl said she would study.  I asked what she would study, and then another said she would have written it all down.  I described that as recording data and told them that scientists do that all the time so they can remember what they see.

Next we played Kim's game, which the girls enjoyed. Then I had them get out their map and map where the snails were in their room. Then we sorted the snails into piles--there were only two different types.  This was supposed to be a data recording exercise.  It worked better three years ago when we had pictures hung on the wall and were live.

We finished with Make New Friends and let the Brownies go so the Juniors could talk about badges.  I'm going to have a hard time coming up with virtual horseback riding.  They want to to anything with art and Animal Habitats was popular.  I can probably tie that into this Journey.

Once the girls were done, I sent the parents a note describing Citizen Science and giving them a link to the Girl Scout Sci Starter projects page.  I told them to let the girls pick one that works for their family and said that I had been  having fun with the iNaturalist app.  I also gave them a link to this video I found on one of the facebook groups I read. I asked the girls to do a project between now and the time we meet again in two weeks, and to watch the video.  Most of them aren't going back to school for another two weeks (the public schools were supposed to start Wednesday, but they've pushed it back again), so they have time on their hands.

All things considered, it wasn't a bad meeting.  I'm thinking that the key to virtual meetings is to keep the girls actively interacting.  Discussion isn't working well, and honestly that's not my strong point anyway.  I had wanted to get the girls more involved in planning and executing meetings this year, particularly the Juniors, but I'm going to put that off until we are back together.

At the next meeting I plan to have the girls talk about their Citizen Science project.  I'm then going to try to get a discussion going about our TAP.  Again, discussion isn't my strength but I'm going to lean on the suggestions for older girls for this journey to guide the discussion.  Hopefully we will come up with a TAP, and I'll decide whether it is something we can work on together at our next meeting or something we'll do apart.

I am also going to have the girls wear hats to the meeting and I'm going to come up with some type of data gathering exercises using the hats as things to observe.  If there is time, I will try to get at least one badge requirement for one group or the other done.  Actually the EcoFriend badge was requested, as was Animal Habitats, so I have something to pull into the whole observation/data gathering deal.  We'll see.

How have your virtual meetings gone?  What have you found works, and what have you found does not?