Community partner: Girl Scouts of Colorado
Solving the community-identified need
Girl Scouts bring their dreams to life and work together to build a better world. Through programs from coast to coast, Girl Scouts of all backgrounds and abilities can be unapologetically themselves as they discover their strengths and rise to meet new challenges—whether they want to climb to the top of a tree or the top of their class, lace up their boots for a hike or advocate for climate justice, or make new best friends. Backed by trusted adult volunteers, mentors, and millions of alums, Girl Scouts lead the way as they find their voices and make changes that affect the issues most important to them. Girl Scouts have voiced their concern for the lack of sustainable education in their schools and have asked for more resources regarding sustainability, especially in the context of traveling. Currently, they are mainly ignored when it comes to planning a family or a school trip. With the Girl Scouts of Colorado cohort, we have developed a 360° to help educate not only Girl Scouts, but youth in general. This gives them a legitimate role in trip planning and makes it possible to demand grown-ups to take actions which do not harm our planet.
Working together – from the start to the end of the project
No matter what initiative- it is always important to work user-centered. We embraced this principle from the very first second of this project. Based on the identified community need, a survey was designed that was sent out and promoted across the Girl Scouts network. The responses from the participants were a crucial fundament for the rest of the research and in particular in developing the learning modules. Getting feedback from the Girls directly was very important, hence the whole project was tested with a first cohort of Girl Scouts of different ages. Currently, we continue to work together, incentivizing Girl Scouts to spread their knowledge and connecting to additional stakeholders interested in conducting the workshops such as teachers.
Goals we achieve together
All children should feel comfortable to discuss sustainable aspects facing their parents or teacher whenever planning or conducting their next trip. They can be the drivers of sustainable behavior by reminding the adults and make them rethink their habits
Teamwork is a significant component in the developed game. Hence, the Girl Scouts also improve their social abilities and learn how to work together with people outside of their peer group.
Learning something that can immediately be implemented increases the self-consciousness of the children. Learning how it feels to be the expert in a topic is an important experience.
Bringing together Girl Scouts of different ages develops leadership skills on the part of older Girl Scouts who take over responsibility whilde supporting the workshop.
