Suffolk Girl Scouts Learn their Way around the Kitchen

This summer, 15 Suffolk Girl Scouts had the opportunity to learn their way around the kitchen thanks to a grant from the Suffolk Foundation. The girls gathered for four weekly meetings with experts from Young Chefs Academy to develop their cooking skills, test some recipes in the kitchen and learn about healthy living.

During the series, girls made a wide variety of dishes, including bean burgers, carrot and sweet potato fries, chicken soup and quesadillas with fresh salsa. In addition to honing their cooking skills, the girls also learned about kitchen safety, menu planning, dining etiquette and table setting.

On the final evening of the series, girls put all of their new skills to the test to prepare an Italian feast. They made tomato sauce from scratch, kneaded dough to make focaccia bread and made their own spinach noodles. The girls enjoyed the process of running their dough through the pasta machine to create thin noodles. They also put together a strawberry, basil and balsamic salad to complement the meal. After the tables were set and the food was plated, girls had the opportunity to enjoy the mea they had prepared.

“Many of the recipes have incorporated vegetables in fun and unique ways,” Girl Scout volunteer Dina Crewe said. “That’s great because we have a couple of picky eaters in the group, but they have sampled everything they’ve made and liked most of it.”

Through the series, the staff from Young Chefs Academy taught girls that cooking is a lifelong skill that can be infused with creativity and fun. Although the girls had recipes to follow, they also had the chance to be creative and make their own culinary discoveries. The girls also learned about how meal planning can lead to healthier food choices, talked about keeping their body fueled with good nutrition and looked at how their diet affects their energy levels.

Girl Scouts recognizes that healthy lifestyles are part of the foundation that girls need to become strong leaders. From the youngest Girl Scout Daisies who may learn to create healthy snacks to the oldest Girl Scout Ambassadors who are empowered to advocate for healthier food choices at their schools, Girl Scouts of all ages are engaged in activities to help them attain practical life skills related to healthy living.

Girl Scouts Explore STEM

A group of Girl Scouts have been spending the summer discovering and exploring in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields as part of a series offered by Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast for girls attending the Norfolk United for Children Summer Enrichment Program. During the series, the girls have had the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of STEM activities, including making electromagnets and building rockets.

Earlier this week, girls at P.B. Young, Sr. Elementary School welcomed a special guest to their series, Dr. Shamina Aubuchon, who works as an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Hampton University. Dr. Aubuchon shared with the first and second graders what she does as a biomedical research scientist and talked to them about the wide variety of careers in science.

“When I was growing up, I wanted to be an astronaut, and then I wanted to be a doctor, but I always loved science,” Dr. Aubuchon told the girls. “Scientists are always asking questions about the world and trying to figure out how things work.”

After hearing from Dr. Aubuchon, the girls explored the world of electrical engineering with snap circuit kits. Using the prewired connectors, the girls snapped together a variety of circuits to power a lightbulb and a speaker.

According to the Girl Scout Research Institute study, Generation STEM: What Girls Say About Science, 81 percent of girls see themselves as smart enough to have a career in STEM, many do not consider it to be their number-one career option. In fact, in today’s world, women hold only about 25 percent of the STEM careers. Girl Scouts is working to fill the gap by engaging girls in opportunities to learn from women in STEM who inspire them to envision themselves in similar careers.

Girl Scouts Explore Chesapeake

Chesapeake Girl Scouts Erin and Darshawn
explored A Place for Girls and The Outback.

The newest Girl Scouts in Chesapeake are eager to get started with their troop this fall, but over the summer have already started their fun and adventure in Girl Scouts by earning the Explore Chesapeake patch. Throughout the summer, they've been learning about historical events that took place in the city, as well as visiting landmarks and important locations in Chesapeake to earn the patch.

On July 26, Girl Scouts met at A Place for Girls, the Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast regional program center and headquarters for a day of discovery and exploration. The girls participated in a scavenger hunt that taught them about Juliette Gordon Low, the woman who founded Girl Scouts of the USA in Savannah, Ga. in 1912. The girls also explored The Outback, a nine acre nature area behind A Place for Girls on Bells Mill Creek. In The Outback, the girls observed birds and other wildlife and conquered elements of the fitness trail, including a balance beam and monkey bars.

Earlier in the summer, the girls enjoyed watching Shakespeare in the Grove at Tidewater Community College, planting a seedling at Chesapeake Arboretum and learning about life on a farm during a tour at Bergey’s Breadbasket Dairy Farm, among other activities.

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Girl Scouts Explore STEM through LEGO Series

A group of Girl Scouts in Hampton have been hard at work this summer engineering bridges, building towers and constructing homes one LEGO brick at a time as part of a summer series hosted by Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast. This series was designed for girls to be able to participate in hands-on experiences that introduce them to concepts and activities in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields.

During the series sessions, each Girl Scout is given a BuildToExpress LEGO kit, which contains over 200 LEGO elements, including colorful bricks, figures and accessories that will allow the girls to let their creativity come to life. When the girls met on June 23, they went over the Girl Scout Promise and Law, which outline how people should act towards one another. Then, each girl chose a component of the Law and illustrated it using her LEGO kit. From garden scenes full of flowers making the world a better place to LEGO figures being friendly and helpful, each girl had the opportunity to build with creativity.

When girls explore and discover with LEGOs, no matter what they build, they are using their imagination and practicing the basics of engineering, all while having fun. It’s a chance for them to figure out how pieces fit together, test physics by seeing how high they can stack bricks, create a visual display of ideas that they have in their head and connect with their peers as they share ideas.

This series, which was designed to open up a future in STEM for the girls who participate, was funded by Alcoa Foundation, an organization established by Alcoa, a mining, manufacturing and innovation company that makes a positive difference in sustainability by investing in the community to support education and environmental programs. Last October, the foundation awarded Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast with $20,000 to implement STEM education programs in Hampton.

In today’s world, where only about 25 percent of STEM careers are held by women, it is more important than ever to expose girls to a world of possibilities. The informal curriculum of Girl Scouts allows girls to discover what they are capable of, connect with one another to work as part of a tem and take action to become resourceful problem solvers. Girl Scouts delivers this curriculum in a comfortable, all-girl environment, where girls are more likely to ask questions, try new things and take risks because they do not have to worry about fitting into gender roles they may encounter at school.

My Promise, My Faith Pin

During the week of July 21, Knotts Island United Methodist Church in Currituck County, North Carolina, hosted a special series for girls on the island to earn the Girl Scout My Promise, My Faith pin. This pin was developed by Girl Scouts of the USA to allow girls to further strengthen their connection between their faith and Girl Scouts by carefully examining the Girl Scout Law and directly tying it to tenets of her faith.

Everything that Girl Scouts do is based on the Girl Scout Promise and Law—a guiding message that teaches girls about how to act towards one another, other people and the world. It encourages girls to be honest, friendly, considerate, responsible and respectful and encompasses many other principles common to most faiths. The opportunity for girls to earn the My Promise, My Faith pin is a chance for them to take a spiritual journey through Girl Scouts.

Girls talked about each line of the Girl Scout Law and
how it relates to their own lives. 

Each day during the series, the girls went over different parts of the Girl Scout Law and had discussions about how they are friendly and helpful at home, at school and in the community, talked about people they look up to as role models and how they can be a role model for others and shared ideas about how to be good stewards of the planet and its natural resources. They kept track of their thoughts, discussions and inspirational quotes in a journal that they made during their first meeting.

The girls also worked on fun crafts, such as making angel necklaces using a paperclip, and prepared for their culminating event on Friday evening, when they shared their new and strengthened connections to faith with friends, family and members of the church. The middle-school age Girl Scouts in the group created decorations for the event— flower arrangements made from newspapers and tissue paper scraps, an example of using their resources wisely, a component of the Girl Scout Law.

Girl Scouts Cadence and Addison work on a
flower arrangement made of recycled materials.

For this series, Girl Scouts were welcomed into Knotts Island United Methodist Church by Pastor Diana Johnson, who has been with the church for two years and is a lifetime member of Girl Scouts. Pastor Johnson has been a Girl Scout volunteer for over 18 years and eagerly helped the girls through their My Promise, My Faith journey. She talked to the girls about how she incorporates the values of the Girl Scout Law into her own life, shared the long-standing history of Knotts Island United Methodist Church and helped girls think about what the Girl Scout Law and their faith have in common.

“Youth are a wonderful gift, and we need to help them develop positive attitudes and show them that they are important,” Pastor Johnson said. “By opening up the church for them to participate in Girl Scouts and explore their faith, the community is showing their support for the girls.”

As a way to give back to the community, the girls who participated in the series brought in food donations to help stock the food pantry at the church, which supports 18 families on Knotts Island.

For over 100 years, Girl Scouts has provided numerous opportunities for girls to grow in their respective faiths, as each girl is encouraged to develop her own strong values within the context of family, faith and the Girl Scout Promise and Law.