Gold Award Spotlight: STEM for Them

Madeline, a Smithfield Girl Scout, has earned the Gold Award, the highest honor and achievement a girl can earn in Girl Scouting.

For her project, Madeline created an educational program designed to introduce children to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) through engaging, hands-on activities. Madeline led workshops at Quality Time Child Care and Preschool and Main Street Baptist Church in Smithfield, where she worked with children ages one to 12 to increase their interest in STEM. Activities that Madeline organized for the children included cleaning up a simulated oil spill, making rubber band catapults, building simple machines using household objects and creating a rain cloud in a cup.

Madeline also coordinated her lesson plans with Virginia Standards of Learning and shared them with elementary school teachers in Isle of Wight schools. Many teachers are incorporating her activities into their lesson plans.

“I wanted to create a STEM program that would be fun for kids to participate in, but also coordinate with the Standards of Learning,” Madeline said. “Working with the kids and watching their excitement for STEM grow was the best thing I could have asked for.”

Madeline also created a series of how-to STEM activity videos that she placed online to encourage people to try STEM activities with children at home or at school. She has coordinated with the National Honor Society at Smithfield High School to offer her workshops in the future.

The Gold Award requires girls to identify an issue in the community and carry out a Take Action project to address the matter through leadership work. Nationwide, less than six percent of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award, which adds Madeline to an elite group of female leaders across the country with the honor.

Gold Award Spotlight: Creating a Nest Success

Ashlyn, a Smithfield Girl Scout, has earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor and achievement a girl can earn in Girl Scouting.

After learning about the lack of suitable habitats for wood ducks in her community, Ashlyn decided to take action to support the wood duck population. After recruiting a team of volunteers to help, she built wood duck houses and installed them at Windsor Castle Park in Smithfield. Although there were birdhouses at the park, there were not designated habitats for wetlands wildlife.

“Wood ducks need very specific living conditions,” Ashlyn said. “I provided housing for the wood duck population in my area, and I encouraged others to follow in my footsteps to help maintain the wood duck population.”

Ashlyn educated members of her community about wood ducks and their habitat needs. She spoke at meetings of the Virginia Master Gardeners in Smithfield, the Smithfield Chapter of Ducks Unlimited, the Isle of Wight County Women’s Club, local Girl Scout troops and her civic league. She also created a Facebook page to share her project with others.

Ashlyn has arranged for members of the Historic Southside Chapter of the Virginia Master Naturalists to upkeep the wood duck houses. She set up a Wood Duck Specialty Group within the organization and trained members about how to care for the boxes.

The Gold Award requires girls to identify an issue in the community and carry out a Take Action project to address the matter through leadership work. Nationwide, less than six percent of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award, which adds Ashlyn to an elite group of female leaders across the country with the honor.

Gold Award Spotlight: Teens Care About Cancer

Smithfield Girl Scout Meghan has earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor and achievement a girl can earn in Girl Scouting.

When Meghan was 11 years old, she was diagnosed with leukemia. While she was going through treatment, she was astonished about how little people knew about leukemia and other types of cancer. For her Gold Award project, Meghan created a club, Teens Care about Cancer, at her high school in inform students and staff about cancer, its symptoms and ways to treat and prevent it.

Under Meghan’s leadership, the members of Teens Care about Cancer made posters about a different type of cancer each month in order to raise awareness in the school. They also built a reflection area at Smithfield High School to honor all of the lives touched by cancer.

“Many teenagers do not know much about cancer and how some decisions that they make can increase their risk of getting cancer,” Meghan said. “By increasing their knowledge, I hoped to decrease some of their high-risk behaviors, such as not wearing sunscreen.”

Before Meghan graduated from Smithfield High School, she arranged for students and a faculty advisor to continue running Teens Care about Cancer so that teens at her school will continue to be educated about preventing cancer.

The Gold Award requires girls to identify an issue in their community and carry out a Take Action project to address the matter through leadership work. Nationwide, less than 6 percent of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award, which adds Meghan to an elite group of female leaders across the country with the honor.

Gold Award Spotlight: Animal Etiquette

Girl Scout Ambassador Jamie Lanzalotto from Smithfield, has earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor and achievement in Girl Scouting.

For her project, Jamie focused on improving the efficiency of volunteers at the Isle of Wight County Animal Shelter. She wanted to help the volunteers have a better understanding of their duties so that the animal shelter would be a cleaner and healthier environment. In order to do this, Jamie made a training video for volunteers and formed a junior volunteer club to encourage local children to get involved in helping the community. At volunteer meetings, Jamie led attendees in activities to help advertise animals available for adoption, showed them proper ways to care for animals and collected donations of food and supplies for the shelter.

“I love animals and this shelter is one of my favorite places to volunteer,” Jamie said. “I chose this project because I wanted to make the shelter a better place and give the animals a better life.”

In order to further support the animal shelter, Jamie created a video about fostering cats and set up a table to recruit volunteers at the Isle of Wight County Fair.

The Gold Award requires girls to identify an issue in their community and carry out a Take Action project to address the matter through leadership work. Nationwide, less than 6 percent of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award, which adds Jamie to an elite group of female leaders across the country with the honor.

Gold Award Spotlight: Disability Awareness

Girl Scout Ambassador Lauren from Smithfield has earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor and achievement in Girl Scouting. For her project, Lauren addressed the issue of bullying, especially in settings where students with special needs are bullied in school.

Lauren began her project by researching a variety of disabilities, including autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness and dyslexia. She then created a binder for each of these topics that she filled with child-friendly explanations of each disability, pictures of children with the disability and a video about how to recognize different disabilities. The binders also included activities designed to help children to better understand challenges that some of their peers face, including sign language and braille activities.

When her binders were complete, Lauren presented her project to an administrator at Driver Elementary School in Suffolk, where it will be used as a resource for students and teachers to better understand students with special needs and gain insight into the learning and social challenges that they face. Lauren hopes that this education will help to decrease, and eventually end, bullying.

“I chose to do this project because of the bullying and discrimination that I experienced in elementary school,” Lauren said. “I wanted to help other students and hopefully prevent them from experiencing the same pain.”

The Gold Award requires girls to identify an issue in their community and carry out a Take Action project to address the matter through leadership work. Nationwide, less than 6 percent of eligible Girl Scouts earn the Gold Award, which adds Lauren to an elite group of female leaders across the country with the honor.