By: Jaclyn M.
Have you earned your Girl Scout Silver Award? Or maybe you’re in the middle of the process? I recently earned my Silver Award, and I’d like to share my experience.
My first step was to figure out what my project would be about. For my Girl Scout Bronze Award I chose wildlife, because I live in an area with a lot of deer and other animals, and I had learned a lot of interesting conservation tips from the Chattahoochee Nature Center that I thought needed to be shared. So, I made a video! For my Girl Scout Silver Award, I knew that I wanted to expand on that video, I just didn’t know how.
For me, the “how” part was the hardest part of the process because everything I thought of seemed either too small or too large. I finally landed on a project right in the middle - an interactive game and patch program!
I had a lot of experience with Scratch, which is an online block coding platform from MIT. It’s for kids, and you can make and share projects for free. I felt this would be a good platform because my target audience was Girl Scouts and other kids, and kids using Scratch could come across my project when they would otherwise not have.
My initial idea was to make a platformer style game, but make it to where at the end of every level there was an informational pop up to teach about one of the actions I talked about in my video, and then a short mini game to illustrate it.
Since I had never made a platform game before, I needed to learn some mechanics, so I found some tutorials on YouTube, and decided that I would follow the tutorial to learn the basics, then use that knowledge in my other game.
The only problem with that was there was a lot of lagging. So I stopped the tutorial and tried to figure it out on my own. But I ran into so, so, so many bugs to the point where I didn’t even know what was broken or how to fix it. The whole game was going haywire!
So I decided to pivot from my original idea. For my new idea, I made two parts on ways to help animals, the first had a more broader focus, on feral cat colonies, and the beneficial process of trap, neuter, return or TNR.
While the second focused on wildlife, by showing how to use the Animal Help Now app. I am really proud of how they turned out! Here are the links if you want to try them.
Part 1 - Feral Cats: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/979218629/
Part 2 - Wildlife: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/956305851/
Now that I had finished my games, which took the most time, it was time to work on the broader patch program. I made three programs, with one designed for Girl Scout Daisies, one for Girl Scout Brownies, and one for Girl Scout Juniors. For each level I made a detailed plan that the leaders can use, with lots of fun, level appropriate activities that fit into 2-3 meetings, and a feedback form at the end.
Once the program was completed, there was only one thing missing, the patch! I partnered with a local artist, Lyn’s Wrens, who makes handmade felt ornaments, and she let me use a photo of her owl. The road to patch design was a little rocky, and I ended up with sew on patches instead of iron on, but in the end they turned out pretty great!
Finally, I had a fully functioning patch program and it was time to share it! I created a website, spoke at a service unit meeting, and wrote a post to be shared on social media.
There were plenty of bumps along the way, but overall it was fun, and I learned quite a bit. I’m proud of how my project turned out, and can’t wait for Girl Scout troops across the country to try it!
Here is my website link if you’d like to check it out and maybe do it with your troop or incorporate it into your Day Camp activities!
https://girlscoutjaclyn.wixsite.com/saving-wildlife123
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