New Badge Review: Junior Numbers In Nature

This year GSUSA came out with a new set of progressive badges, Math in Nature for Daisies, Brownies and Juniors.  I've taken a look at Brownie Shapes in Nature, Brownie Numbers in Nature and Junior Shapes in Nature.  This post will review Junior Numbers in Nature.  

Requirements

According to Badge Explorer, here are the requirements for Junior Numbers in Nature

 Explore how math can be used to tell us all kinds of information about nature, from how tall or old a tree is to the weather, season, or time.

1. Tell time with nature

2. Track the weather

3. Explore the circumference of trees

4. Search for shadows

5. Find the area and perimeter of plants

When you've earned this badge, you will know how to use math to tell time, predict the weather, and learn about trees.

You’ll know how to measure shadows, perimeter, and area.

Tell Time With Nature

The suggested opening activity is to present the girls with a variety of measuring tools such as rulers and thermometers and to have them brainstorm about what they have in common, while eating a healthy snack.

To tell time with nature, the leader talk about sundials and then the girls make one out of a paper plate and chopstick or straw and take it outside to test it.  The leader talking points use the word symmetry when talking about drawing the lines for the time and  have the girls talking about the accuracy of sundials vs clocks (though I think the proper term would be precision), and of course, pointing out the shortfalls of using sundials to keep time.

Another choice is to make  a sundial using the shadow from a Girl Scout, two rocks and a ribbon.  The leader talking points are similar.  

The final activity taught me something.  It has the girls using their hands and the position of the sun relative to the horizon to determine how long until sunset.  

Track the Weather

The first choice is to make a weather station with a rain gauge, a windsock and something to measure wind speed  (anemometer). Directions are given.  

Building a barometer out of a jar and a balloon is the second choice.  

The third choice is to research signs in nature that point to changing weather and then to go outside and look for those signs.

Homework

Troops that do the first two activities are supposed to take their devices home and use them until the next meeting, recording the data from the instruments as well as the current weather.  As an opening activity at the next meeting they will compare their data to data from the newspaper or a weather app.

Explore the Circumference of Trees

The first activity in this section is to measure the circumference of trees with a tape measure.  The leader explains that each inch in circumference is approximately equal to a year in age.  Girls also use a field guide or an app to identify the trees. Finally this activity has the girls measuring the trees with their "wingspan", the distance from right fingers to left, by hugging trees.

The second activity is basically the same as the first, except that it includes a definition of "tree pit", the distance between the tree and other trees or structures and states that trees should have a 5X5 area around it.  The leader points out that the bigger the circumference, the bigger the tree pit should be and that the tree pit is necessary for the tree to be healthy.

The third activity is basically the same, except that after measuring the trees, this time in centimeters, the Juniors use a conversion chart to calculate how much carbon is stored in the tree.  

Search for Shadows

This activity has to do with computing the length of one thing by measuring its shadow  and using math to compare it to the length of the shadow of something you know the length of--like a Girl Scouts.  Girls measure the shadow of a tree and the  shadow of a girl standing by the tree and then use the formula  (Junior's height x Tree shadow length) / Junior's shadow length = Tree height to compute the tree height.  

An alternate activity is given where flashlights replace the sun and toys replace the trees.  The other two choices for this steps are basically the same from what I can see, as are the leader talking points.  The difference is in where you find the shadows.

Find the Area and Perimeter of Plants

The first activity is to measure the perimeter of a leaf by putting a string around the outside of the leaf and cutting it to size and then measuring the string.  To compute the area, girls trace the leaf on graph paper and then count the full boxes plus those boxes that are more than half full.  Estimation is discussed as are the definitions of perimeter and area.

The second activity is to plan a garden on graph paper and to figure out its perimeter and area in much the same way. Girls can research how much space plants need and draw them in the garden.  

The other choice is to compute the perimeter and area of a natural feature.  Girls find the feature such as a lake our mountain on a map that uses centimeters for scale, trace it on graph paper and then use the map scale along with the technique above to figure out the perimeter and area.  

Meeting Resources

VTK provides twelve meeting aids to be used with this badge:  

• Dry Weight Conversion Table
• Sample Sundial photo and directions to make
• Your Weather Toolbox handout
• Sundial photos (several different sundials)
• Sample barometer photo and directions to make
• Find the height of any object--photo and directions to use shadows to measure
• Girl Scout Survey
• Math in Nature Badges Glossary
• Overview
• Materials list

My Comments

I don't hate it, but it doesn't have me excited either.  I've been thinking about this series of badges and why the first badge for both Brownies and Juniors impressed me, and why I really disliked the Brownie Numbers in Nature and don't really care for tis one.  Part of it is that I never really liked math--to me it was just work, work I could do, but work. There was nothing interesting about it--no story so to speak (yes I'm a word person, a book worm and someone who has been writing since I could write).  

To me, math is something that serves a purpose.  I play around with all sorts of numbers when I do surveys for this blog.  The numbers involved in the  Covid pandemic fascinate me. Doing math worksheets is a pain--like doing phonics worksheets, and to me these badges seem like worksheets--math without a purpose.  

The telling time with nature activities appeal to me--and in doing them you can squeeze in a lot of math concepts because you need to know them to do the activity.  The tricks for telling time with shadows are the same way--a neat concept that you need math to do.   

Measuring the circumference of a tree?  Why?  In insolation, there really doesn't seem to be a point except to learn to use a tape measure or to use a string to measure.  If you were doing a badge about trees and this was one activity, with the associated talking points, it would be interesting and a chance to use math practically.  You could add the activity about measuring by comparing shadows too. 

The weather activities are great in my opinion.  Add a couple of more and make that a badge in and of itself.  Again the math (I'm guessing the data collection and comparison and measurements) is in the context of an interesting activity, it isn't just done for its own sake.  

As far as finding the area and perimeter of plants, sorry those just look like math problems.  Now, if you actually needed that information to do an outdoor activity or a craft....