New Badge Review: Junior Design With Nature

 

The third Math in Nature badge introduced this year is called "Design With Nature". Here is what Badge Explorer gives as the requirements:

Juniors use math to plan and organize an outdoor adventure. They'll decide where to go, how long they'll be gone for, and what to bring.

        Steps

            1. Find your hiking pace

            2. Choose a hiking trail

            3. Find changes in elevation on a map

            4. Decide how much food to bring

            5. Pack for your adventure

        Purpose

When Juniors have earned this badge, they'll know about different types of maps. They'll know how to calculate distance, pace, elevation changes, and area.

Find Your Hiking Pace

The first choice for this step is to walk a quarter of a mile with a stopwatch running.  The girls note the number of seconds needed to do this.  The the leader leads the girls through the math of converting that number of seconds per quarter of a mile into a decimal, which is then multiplied by 4 to get the seconds per mile. Then they divide 60 by the one mile pace to calculate the speed in miles per hour.  Then, two methods are given to calculate how many miles you can walk in three hours.  VTK suggests having each girl work the problems with the leader at a whiteboard demonstrating.  

The second choice is to compare human and animal paces.  First the leader tells the girls that an average human pace is 5 minutes for a quarter of a mile.  Then she leads the group through the calculations described in the first activity.  Next, the girls look up an animal and draw it on an index card and note its pace and do the same calculations with the animal's pace that they did with the human pace.  

The third choice is to try different types of movement like walking, running, walking backwards or skipping and then doing the calculations described about and comparing and contrasting the results. 

With all three choices the leader relates doing these calculations to planning a hike.

Choose a Hiking Trail

In the first choice, girls are given maps printed from VTK and there is a discussion about map scale and other features of the map.  Then the girls use a string to measure the distance between two points of interest  on the map and, after doing so, use the formula "length of string X scale=distance" to determine how long this hypothetical hike would be.  They also use the figures from step one to calculate how long it would take to do this hike. 

The only difference in the other choices is the  map. One uses a local map, the other, any map of interest.  

Find Changes in Elevation on a Map

For this step, the leader shows the girls either a sample topographical map included in the VTK materials, a topographical map of a local area or a topographical map of any area (these are the three choices).  She shows them the map and talks about what the various things on it mean.  She explains that when the contour lines are close together the elevation is changing steeply; when they are further apart, the land is flatter and that one side of the contour line is uphill, the other downhill.  

Next, the girls are given a worksheet on which to choose three points on the topographical map, and then list the elevation of those points.  They then graph the elevation on the graph paper part of the worksheet before subtracting to find the difference in elevation between the points.  They talk about whether the changes are steep or gradual, uphill or down.  

The first meeting closes with a friendship circle, but the girls do not select the activities for the next meeting.

Decide How Much Food to Bring

The first choice is titled "Make a Snack for Your Hike".  The girls practice using dry and liquid measuring cups and the leader explains the principle of volume.  Then the girls are given a worksheet that says it is recommended that each person drink two cups of water per hour and which asks them to calculate how much water each person will need for a three hour hike. They then calculate how many ounces of water that is, then how many quarts, followed by how much each person's water would weigh in pounds. Finally the girls are asked if their water bottles are big enough to hold their water for a hike, and they are told to use a measuring cup to learn the volume of their water bottle if they don't know it.  The worksheet gives the ounces per cup, cups per quart, quarts per gallon and pounds per gallon.  Next they are given a recipe for trail mix and have to calculate how much of each ingredient they would need given the number of girls in the troop.  

The only difference between the first option and the other two is that option two has them calculating how much of what they need to make sandwiches and the third option has them taking a dessert recipe and doing the math to make it for the group.  

Actually making any of these recipes is not part of the scripted meeting plan.  It's a "for more fun" thing.

Pack for Your Adventure

This requirement is about calculating volume.  Girls either calculate the volume of their backpacks and then the volume of things the need to carry, to determine if they have enough room, or they calculate the volume of a car/truck's cargo area and the volume of the troop camping gear to determine if there is enough room, or they calculate the volume of tent and figure out how big a campsite the troop needs.  Then they try loading the areas to see if their calculations were correct. 

What's Required?

When I reviewed another badge in this series, someone on Facebook called me a negative Nellie, and said her girls were looking forward to the badge.  I asked how they were going to do it, and while she hadn't decided, one thing she knew was that she wasn't going to use the VTK plans.  She said she'd follow the five basic steps, but that she didn't need a script to lead a badge.  

While I don't read scripts to my girls either, I do read them myself because in my opinion, if I don't (or if I don't read the badge packet that is for sale by GSUSA) then I don't really understand where GSUSA is going with the badge.  For example, if I hadn't read the five requirements above, and I read the scripts only, and tried to reverse engineer the requirements for the badge, I'd say the five requirements for this badge are:

• Using either research about average pace, or data gathered from a short walk, and a mathematical equation, compute your pace per hour.
• Using a close-up map of a small area, locate features of interest.  Plot a course and, using the map key, a measuring device and a mathematical equation, determine the length of your course. Using the length and the pace data collected in #1, compute how long it would take you to complete the hike.
• Using a topographical map and a mathematical equation, compute the change in elevation between three points
• Using the information and equations provided, compute the amount of water needed for a three hour hike, along with how much it weighs.  Take a recipe that does not make enough for your group, and, using math, compute the amount of ingredients that would be necessary for your group
• Using an equation, compute the volume of something you are going to use to hold things on an outing.  Compute the volume of the things that need to go in it and determine if there is enough room.  

Just looking at the five steps listed at the top of the posts, I could do #1 with no math--just take the girls for a 1/4 mile walk and use my fitness app to determine the speed.  There are all sorts of ways to choose a hiking trail, most of which require no math at all.  Find changes of elevation on a map--hmm right off hand I can't think of any way to do that requirement without looking at a topographical map and doing the calculations, but one math problem per badge isn't  hard. Decide how much food to bring can be done via discussion--there is nothing in that phrase that says you have to do math to figure it out--you may find a recipe for just the right size group.  Pack for your adventure could mean working together to put together a packing list and then girls packing their own bag, whether for an overnight or a day adventure.  

The problem with this last "adaptation" or "interpretation" of the five steps  is that it completely misses the point of this being a  Math in Nature badge.  The problem with my reverse engineering of the GSUSA plans is the problem I have with the badge--that it is too much math in too short a time.

My Comments

Maybe if someone more creative than I am got this plan she could make it fun, but I'd lose my girls shortly after writing the first equation on the board. 

None of these requirements are bad in and of themselves, my problem is that by putting them together in a plan like this, you are basically spending two meetings doing math worksheets.  The activity to calculate your pace has an active component but the rest is pretty much just talk and calculating.  

I really think that if GSUSA wants to push STEM skills they would be better integrating one or two things  per badge, rather than trying to cram in all in  one place.

My troop will be doing our Simple Meals badge this year.  Included in that, because their leader thinks it's important, will be some measuring skills. We will also look at a recipe, convert it to the size needed and do the math to determine how much of each ingredient we need, before we actually make the recipe.  Its not a requirement for the badge, but the skill fits. 

Map reading and calculating distances and  elevations would be a great step in a hiking badge for Juniors--but make the hike part of earning the badge.  Instead of a badge full of math problems, pick one or two things per badge that they need math to do.  Show them that math isn't something that just happens in school books, its something you need for everyday life.  Yes, after doing all the activities above, you could actually take the hike you have planned, but two full meetings planning a hike is more planning than my girls are ready for.  

Years ago in training we were told to avoid doing a random activity from a badge requirement today, another one from the same badge next month, then two more as part of our holiday party and then awarding the girls a badge they had no idea how they earned. I could see doing one or two of these requirements per outing/hike but I can't imaging sitting down and doing all of them before one outing.

I also think this badge shows a weakness of today's badge program as it exists.  Basically they've been doing series of badges without, it seems to me, thinking about the program as a whole, but rather, focused on particular objectives of either GSUSA or its corporate sponsors.  Last year Juniors got a Trail Adventure badge, which is basically a hiking badge.  To earn that badge girls talk to an expert hiker, learn about gear, train for the adventure and go on the adventure.  The Design With Nature badge is all about planning for hike, but doesn't actually involve a hike.  I really think a well designed Junior Hiking Badge could involve looking at a map to select our path, and using the map key to compute the distance, learning about the gear needed for the hike, learning to read a topographical map and computing the incline, and then packing your own daybag and taking the hike.  Call the badge Hiking so when people are trying to match badges across levels it is easy to do.   

What do you think?  Do you think my reverse-engineered requirements are what GSUSA had in mind, or do you think you can do one or more steps of the badge without doing any math?  Briefly, how would you go about earning this badge?