The overwhelming theme for our unit’s activities this fall has been science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). With Girl Guides of Canada–Guides du Canada programming like Girls Count, and instant meetings like International Day of the Girl 2016, it’s been fun and easy to emphasize STEM as a key part of our programming.
Girls Count
A chorus of “But I don’t liiiiiiiiiike math” echoed out when we first introduced the topic and theme for the evening. But the girls quickly dove right into the activities of the Girls Count financial literacy program, reminding us why programming like this is important for helping girls to build not only important life skills, but to remind them that math isn’t scary.
International Day of the Girl 2016
As busy Unit Guiders, we love the variety of instant meetings for Make a Difference Days that GGC has been developing lately. The 2016 International Day of the Girl instant meeting offered lots of great activities for the girls to further explore STEM. One of the most popular was the creation of stop motion videos. The girls truly showed their creativity in planning out their video, making elaborate sets, and filming.
Career Awareness Badge
Plumber. Furniture maker. Computer coder. Architectural drafter. We were fortunate to have four exceptional women who work in non-traditional careers visit our meeting and give girls the inside scoop on these careers. The girls were very engaged throughout the meeting, which included activities like drafting your bedroom in 3D, cutting plumbing tubing and playing video games.
Physics Badge
Here in Nova Scotia, we are so fortunate to have access to an exciting program called SuperNOVA at Dalhousie University. SuperNOVA has developed hands-on workshops that align directly with six GGC STEM badges (Chemistry, Astronomy, Science, Physics, Engineering, Body Works). This year, we took advantage of the Physics workshop. Girls completed a variety of activities that explored the laws of motion, friction, gravity and light and colour. They were totally into it.
We’ve definitely had a busy fall, incorporating lots of STEM-related programming. Don’t let STEM programming be overwhelming! For new Guiders or Guiders who may feel they aren’t STEM experts (we certainly aren’t!), there are so many GGC resources to choose from, it makes it easy to incorporate STEM into unit programming.
Guest post by Lashauna Smith. Lashauna is a Guide Guider with the 1st Timberlea Guides, in Timberlea, Nova Scotia. She and her co-Guiders appreciate the range of instant meetings provided by Girl Guides of Canada!
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