Four Pillars?

 Currently, GSUSA says that the Girl Scout program is built on four pillars:  STEM, Outdoors, Life Skills and Entrepreneurship, but does the current programming reflect that?  GSUSA's Badge Explorer allows you to sort awards by program pillar, and this post is going to review them in that light.

Badges

When most people think of Girl Scouts they think of badges. While it is true that girls can do just about anything they want to in Girl Scouts--just because there is no sewing badge doesn't mean a troop couldn't spend a significant amount of time on sewing, if that's what the girls wanted to do--the fact of the matter is that, especially with younger troops, leaders look to badges for meeting ideas/themes.  If there is a badge for it, Girl Scouts are a lot more likely to do it than if there is not.  

 

Daisies

Daisies have 10 Petals and the Promise Center to earn.  GSUSA puts them all under "Life Skills". 

 

There are 24 of the round flower Daisy badges.  16 are in the STEM area, 5 are related to Outdoors and one of them is related to Entrepreneurship (besides the 4 leaves). 2 of the badges are from the Life Skills area.  For Daisies, none of the badges are listed in two areas.  

 

In short out of 11 pieces of the flower, 24 badges, and 4 leaves (39 awards), 1/3 of them are "Life Skills", 41% are STEM, about 13% are related to Outdoors and and 13% to Entrepreneurship. If those pillars are holding up a building, it's a very lopsided building. 

Brownies

There are currently 51 Brownie badges.  22 are under the STEM pillar.  9 are under Outdoors, including Bugs, which was also under STEM.  6 are under Entrepreneurship, including Inventor, which was also under STEM.  There are 14 badges under Life Skills, but this really just seems to be a catch-all for anything that doesn't fit the other three categories, including arts, civics, home making skills and what most of us do consider life skills--and yes, there is a badge there that is also under STEM--Computer Expert.  

Percentage wise, 43% of Brownie badges are STEM related, about 18% involve the Outdoors, about 12% Entrepreneurship, and 27% Life Skills.  As part of the program, the number of badges is probably not an accurate representation of the Entrepreneurship pillar as it also encompasses the cookie sale, and most troops spend more time selling cookies than they do on one badge.  Nevertheless, the STEM pillar is clearly the tallest when it comes to badges. 

 

Juniors

There are currently 52 Junior badges.  21 are under the STEM pillar.  10 are under Outdoors, including Animal Habitats which is also under STEM. 17 are under Life Skills, and 5 are under Entrepreneurship (several badges are under two or more pillars). 

Percentage wise, about 40% of the badges fall under STEM, about 19% under Outdoors, almost 33% under the catch-all of Life Skills and about 10% under Entrepreneurship.  

Journeys

There are eight Journeys at each level.  Three were specifically written to be STEM-oriented, the Think Like A...Journeys.  There is one Outdoor Journey at each level, which consists of three outdoor badges plus a Take Action Project.  

Of the three original "book" Journeys at each level, none related to Entrepreneurship.  One at each level falls under STEM, and two under Life Skills.  

Out of a total of 8 Journeys, 50% are under the STEM pillar, 12.5%  are under Outdoors and 37.5% are under Life Skills.

When I asked leaders to rate the Journeys their troops had done, the one that got the best ratings was the Outdoor Journey.  The Think Like a Programmer Journey was the most disappointing.  

Council Programming

The Covid-19 situation makes it hard to determine what things would be like absent all the restrictions we are living under these days.  Still, a look at what councils are providing gives an idea of priorities.  I picked the councils below with the idea of getting urban and rural councils, north and south, east and west.  I don't claim that this is a representative sample, only that it is hopefully a varied one. I've gone to the council website and pulled up the event calendar and counted how many events were offered under each pillar.

GS Louisiana East

This is my council and it encompasses New Orleans and Baton Rouge and their suburbs, along with some rural areas and small towns, but the vast majority of members are in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas.  Entrepreneurship had two girl events--Smart Cookie U and a Virtual Cookie Rally.  STEM had three--Coding for Good workshops (in-person, by a vendor) for Daisies and Brownies and a Zoom meeting with an architect for the Cadette STEM Career Exploration badge.  Under Outdoors, on two different weekends Girl Scouts get free admission to our state parks if in uniform, and if you register, the council will send  you a packet of materials to work on to earn the Eco, Trail Adventure and Outdoor Art badges for your level.  Finally, there is an archery workshop for Cadettes.  In my council, the offered programs are a pretty good split between pillars, except that none of them are related to the life skills pillar.

GS River Valleys

I picked this council because it is at the opposite end of the Mississippi River from New Orleans and I know the area it encompasses includes both the Urban Twin Cities and some very rural areas around them.  The climate is very different from New Orleans too. They had two Entrepreneurship activities that did not involve Cookies and three that did.  They had two Outdoors activities--one of which was Wilderness First Aid for older girls and the other, EcoFriend for Brownies, both via Zoom.  Guess it is too cold outside to do outdoor activities.   They had 7 events that didn't fall in other categories, so I'll put them in Life Skills and 9 STEM events.  There is a clear STEM tilt to their activities.  

Girl Scouts of Wyoming and Montana

I have to think it would be hard to find an area more unlike mine than Wyoming and Montana.  They have two different STEM programs on their calendar, both virtual and both offered multiple times. They have one Entrepreneurship program, it is is a cookie rally.  There is a Wilderness First Aid class which I guess would be Life Skills and Outdoors, and it is virtual.

Girl Scouts California Central Coast

Their website lets you click on the pillar and see all programs with space available.  I counted 14 STEM programs, 1 for Outdoors, 15 under Life Skills and 21 under Entrepreneurship--and they were badge workshops, not cookie rallies or "Cookie U" type events.  If you are looking for virtual programs, check out their pages, they have a lot of events. The only problem is that they are on California time.  

Girl Scouts Mountains to the Midlands

They had 6 Life Skills program, 3 STEM, 3 Outdoor and 1 Entrepreneurship (not cookies). 

Troop Choices

If you look at my posts about leader thoughts on Daisy Programming and Brownie programming, you'll see links to my surveys.  

Daisies have 28 non-petal badges and 7 Journeys.  Looking at the  badges done by 75% of the respondents, you get the four leaves, Buddy Camper, Ecolearner, Good Neighbor, Outdoor Art Maker and Space Science Explorer.  Whereas as 41% of the offered awards were in STEM, only 1 of the 9 most popular was a STEM badge.  Because the leaves are seen as a set and complete the flower, I think leaders are more apt to do them, to some degree, than other badges, so 4/9 of the popular badges are in the Entrepreneurship pillar.  3/9 are from the Outdoors pillar and 1 from Life skills (besides the 11 in the Daisy petal set). 

 Brownies have 7 Journeys and 51 badges.   82 people responded to my survey on the Brownie program.  I looked at badges done by 60 or more of them--about 72%.  Those badges were: First Aid, Girl Scout Way, Painting, Senses, and Snacks.  4 are Life Skills and 1 is STEM.  If you look at badges done by more than half the troops, you can add Bugs, Cabin Camper, Give Back, Hiker, Home Scientist, Making Friends, Meet My Customer, Money Manager, My Best Self, Outdoor Adventurer, ,Outdoor Art, Pets, and Potter to the list.  Of these, 2 are STEM, 4 are Outdoor, 3 are Entrepreneurship and 4 are Life Skills.  

However, if you look at the opinions about the badges that were done, the ratings for the Entrepreneurship badges were pretty mediocre--none were rated "great" more often than "meh" or "flop".  The Outdoor badges all had more "great" votes than "meh" and only two badges got one "flop" vote--Hiker and Ecofriend.  In the STEM area, Digital Game Design and App Development had no "great" votes, and the cybersecurity badges had a significant number of "flop" votes. Those who did them were also underwhelmed by the robotics badges.  The only Journey to get more positive votes than not was the Outdoor Journey.  

Council Figures

This section is the last added to this post, and one I had not planned  When I was researching my article about what cookies mean to councils I noted that several of the council's annual reports talked about the four pillars and gave information about participation.  With that in mind, I looked up some more councils.  While I do not claim this is a scientific survey, the numbers are interesting and you can decide for yourself whether the councils I chose are typical, or  not. At least part of the reason these councils were chosen is that I was easily able to find an annual report that talked about the four pillars. 

Girl Scouts Dakota Horizons

This council covers North Dakota, South Dakota, western Minnesota and a bit of Iowa.  It had 8834 girl members in 886 troops.  They said that 840 girls participated in 38 Outdoor programs and earned 1572 badges.  2130 girls participated in 49 STEM programs and earned 1929 badges.  1246 girls participated in 80 Life skills programs and earned 7002 badges.  8102 girls participated in Entrepreneurship programs (probably cookies) and earned 3653 badges. 

Girl Scouts Greater Mississippi

This council covers most of Mississippi, particularly the southern part.  They had 8169 girl members.  They awarded 1258 Legacy badges, 1153 Life Skill badges, 941 Outdoor badges, and 381 STEM badges. They listed 1450 Leadership Journeys.  

Girl Scouts Central Texas

As the name implies, this council is in central Texas and it serves about 17,000 girls.  They awarded 12,906 STEM badges, and the council delivered 110 STEM programs with 6254 girls participating. 10,496 Outdoor badges were earned, and the council had 90 programs that delivered 14,397 girl experiences.    29,526 Life Skill badges were awarded and the council delivered 155 programs and 5675 girl experiences.  9422 Entrepreneurship badges were earned and council delivered 34 programs and 1051 girl experiences.   

My Comments and Conclusions

I like science.  When I was a teacher, it was my favorite class to teach.  I like making messes and seeing kids discover how things work.  That being said, the four-pillared building GSUSA is trying to get us into is clearly crooked.

The Entrepreneurship badges are frequently done, but not loved. 

While Outdoor programming is popular, both in terms of what is chosen and what people end up liking, it makes up less than 20% of the offered badges and Journeys. 

Life Skills is a catch-all, which if it was an equal part of the program, would have about 25% of the Brownie badges; instead it has 27%.  However,  if there is a pillar that should be overweight, this is it as it is where art, music, household skills, physical fitness, and civics among other things land.  As  one would expect from a category that contains so many disparate items, some are popular and some are not. 

While the STEM pillar encompasses over 40% of today's programming, little of it is widely chosen, or popular once it is.  Nevertheless, it seems to be what councils are pushing, based on the available events  shown in my unscientific survey done in this admittedly abnormal time.  

In my opinion, GSUSA needs to get off this STEM kick.  They need to take a look at the programming they have and revise it to make it more engaging and work with councils to implement programs.  Robotics sounds like fun, but to really be fun you need a robot, and that costs money.  Instead of having three robotics badges at each level, none of which have plans that include actually using a robot, if you want to push robotics as fun, encourage councils to purchase sets of robots for check out or to put on programs that involve using robots, not just moving stuffed animals through mazes.  

The popular programs deal with the outdoors, arts, and life skills.  Look at expanding those, and if STEM is your thing, working it into those programs.