Sunday, October 29, 2023

Brownie Create and Innovate


This year GSUSA came out with three new "maker" badges for Daisies, Brownies and Juniors.  This post takes a look at the VTK plans for the Brownie version of Create and Innovate to give you an idea of where this badge is going without having to dig through the whole  VTK plan.  As with the other badges in this series, the talking points are as important as the craft. 

Thursday, October 19, 2023

Junior Math In Nature Survey Results


 This is the last in a series of posts looking at the Math in Nature badges as well as what people believe is necessary to earn them.  I surveyed members of some Facebook groups for Girl Scout leaders to acquire the data presented and I make no representations about the data other than stating how I got it.  I have three other posts in this series:

Junior Shapes in Nature 

Symmetry is the main topic for Juniors.  "Identify Symmetry in Nature" deals with lines of symmetry. "Explore Bilateral Symmetry in Nature" is about Bilateral Symmetry. "Create Nature Inspired Art with Circular Symmetry" is, yes, about circular symmetry.  "Find Fractals in Nature" is about defining and identifying fractals, and "Search for the Fibonacci Sequence" is about recognizing it in nature.  

Saturday, October 7, 2023

Brownie Math In Nature: Survey Results


This is the third of four posts about the results of my survey of members of various Facebook groups for Girl Scout leaders on the subject of the Math in Nature badges released by GSUSA a couple of years ago.  The first post talked about the people who responded and about the badges in general.  The second post focused on the Daisy badge.  I plan to write about the Junior badges but haven't gotten there yet. 

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Survey Results: Daisy Math in Nature Badges


This post is the result of a survey I did of members of a bunch of Girl Scout leader Facebook groups.  I wanted to look at two things: 

  1. The Math in Nature badges--did people like them, and how did they do them
  2. Related to that, what did people think was required to earn them.
I think (at least hope) that all of us would agree that looking outside for round things and then counting them is not enough to earn these badges.  I doubt there are many, if any, people who would say that you have to read the VTK scripts to the girls and do activities exactly as planned there.  However there is a wide gap between these two, and I wondered what most people thought was actually required to earn a badge.  

You can read the survey from which this post was derived here, but obviously there is no point in responding at this time.