Girl Scouts Are Taking Over STEM

RE: Girl Scouts Are Taking Over STEM

jomoenginer — Sat, 28 Jul 2018 03:26:00 GMT

We had a Girl Scout Troop attend one of the meetings of the Robotics club I belong to a couple of months back and from I had seen it might be more appropriate use the acronym STEAM rather than STEM. I applaud the Girl Scouts for adding such badges and attempt to get them involved in something more technical. However, the projects that were brought to the meeting , from what I had heard by folks in the club who either have kids in Scouts (sorry, can't call it Boy Scouts anymore) or are Scout leaders, were not what the boys would have been assigned or expected to do. These girls were at the final phase of getting one of the Robotics badges and were looking to get more data regarding the Engineering Process when designing a product. The projects that were brought, well at least the ones that had survived, looked more like something I would expect from an Arts and Craft session. The material used were things like feathers, cloth, cardboard and such. I guess there was some sort of recycle usage requirement. One did have a used 3 1/4" Floppy Disk attached, but I passed to ask if anyone knew what it was. They seemed to be only taught theory rather than put together some sort of functioning devices or use a LEGO MindStorm kit. Having a daughter myself, I could tell the majority of these girls were less than excited with the whole thing and just wanted to get it over with and go play. There was one very inquisitive member of the troop and I could see she would more than likely be an Engineer someday.

To me , this is where there are issues. Although girls are quite capable of learning technical subjects, I believe it is the way it is presented to them and the lack of expectation which gets them disinterested. This, of course, is not factoring in peer pressure as well.

Its a very good step in a very cool direction for the Girl Scouts though.

RE: Girl Scouts Are Taking Over STEM

genebren — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 17:26:47 GMT

The badges are (Left to right, top row):

STEM - Mechanical Engineering - Fling flyer

STEM - Robotics 3 - Showcasing robots

STEM - Mechanical Engineering - Roller coaster

(Left to right, bottom row)

STEM - Robotics 3 - Design a robot

STEM - Robotics 1 - Designing robots

Outdoors - Primative camping (not STEM)

Gene

RE: Girl Scouts Are Taking Over STEM

14rhb — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 16:41:22 GMT

Any idea what those six badges represent[mention:b85bafb1d1a14cd0b49feeaee407e32d:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05] ?

I'd go (top left to right) aeronautical, robotics, amusement park, ??, mechanical engineering skills, environment

That fourth badge has me lost. I wonder if it is programming (a valuable skill in STEM subjects ) ?

Rod

RE: Girl Scouts Are Taking Over STEM

genebren — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 16:36:23 GMT

Go girl power!

Gene

RE: Girl Scouts Are Taking Over STEM

snidhi — Wed, 25 Jul 2018 16:30:05 GMT

well, its about time noww [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-7f1c27ea-acc9-4b08-bd65-0fdd1bea79c3/contentimage_5F00_403.png:16:16]