Agent of Change Ideas

Last year my Junior troop completed the Journey: Agent of Change.  The concept is not overly exciting, so I had to get creative to maintain their attention.  I liked this Journey because our "Take Action" Project was essentially our Bronze Award Project so by incorporating this Journey we 'get 2 for the price of 1.'  I have had several people ask for tips for this Journey, so hopefully you can sift through my information and find something worthwhile for your troop.  The Scavenger Hunt at a local outdoor mall was a huge hit and one of the "funnest events" so claims my daughter.  This game could easily be adapted to any mall and even enjoyed in the winter months.

Agent of Change is all about recognizing girls as individuals and all their talents.  Looking at famous people and isolating why they became famous and how.  And emphasizing the fact that even though you are only one person you can make change all by yourself, "Power of One".  Disney is really good at highlighting boys and girls who have made a big impact in their community in a short segment called "Friends for Change".  

I encouraged the girls to imagine what our troop could do if we took all our powers as individuals and turned a project into a troop  effort and capitalized on all our individual talents - "Power of Team".  Finally if we were able to find a community issue where our talents could be used to make a difference, we could affect the community and hopefully get the community to embrace as well - "Power of Community".  So I tasked the girls to look at how we could pool our talents, identify an issue in our community and make a change, which is essentially the "Take Action Project"  AND the Bronze Award.

So after discussing several issues, the girls identified that our community needed recycling at our high school stadium, Dragon Stadium, especially since the stadium sells a large number of plastic items.  

So the girls put together a plan, met with key people including the CISD School Board, went on field trips to the landfill, foam recycling plant and invited a recycling representative to one of our meetings. We arranged to have a dumpster placed at the stadium and a system for recycling within the stadium. Our troop kicked off the project at graduation when ONLY water bottles were handed out and we recycled nearly 3000 water bottles!  9 of my 16 girls got their Bronze Award, the others who were not able to attend will complete their Bronze the 1st home game this season and they will be at every home game working towards their Silver as well.  We hope to expand the recycling effort to other sporting events.  So a large portion of this Journey was spent on the "Take Action Project/Bronze Award".

However, I tried to impress the point of the "Power of One" by encouraging each girl to investigate a person they truly admire, most chose women, but men were not exempt.  Then we shared who they admired.  Most girls chose singers or actors, but a few chose people like Michelle Obama and Anne Frank.  Next, we had a Coffee and Cake Cafe with a person we admired in our community.  That was fun!  Each girl was asked to stand up and tell why they had invited their special person.  Many girls chose their Mom or teachers, the principal,  one girl choose a city board member and another a babysitter they loved.  A few also chose a grandparent.  We enjoyed coffee, tea and petit fours.  The girls also wrote a letter and provided a gift to their "Special person".  This hopefully hit home the concept of "Power of One". 

One meeting we played a game:  True, False, Wish

Each girl wrote down something true about themselves (most people would probably not know) on an index card

Something False on an index card

Something they wished was true

Next we went around the circle and read one card, the troop had to decide whether it was true, false or a wish.  This was really fun and insightful.

The girls really enjoyed Power of Team!  I created a court case scenario about an adorable puppy that was dumpster diving behind the chic-fi-la which is clearly against the law.  My co-leader was the puppy and I was the prosecutor.  (we showed a picture of the puppy)  She talked about how the puppy had been abandoned and lost it's mother at a very young age and that the puppy had siblings that were hungry, it was a matter of life and death.  Then I presented the side of the city, how scavenging the dumpsters can create a rat problem and cause a health problem for chic-fi-la, possibly running the owners out of business and then they could not feed their families.  The girls had to individually (Power of One) side with the puppy or prosecutor and then the troop had to make a majority decision and all had to agree to the outcome similar to a real court case - Power of Team.   (Surprisingly they all sided with the prosecution.  They agreed the puppy was wrong even though he was cute and could not help being hungry).  We talked about courts and juries and made the relation.  The girls wanted to create their own cases and debate forever.  They loved this, it was easy to keep them involved.

For a field trip we went on a Scavenger Hunt at Town Square, another Hit!  The girls had a blast!  I created a bunch of riddles and the girls had to find which store I was referring too.  They also earned their "Digital Photographer" badge if they took a picture at every store AND got all the hints right!  I have included my rules for the Scavenger Hunt and my riddles.

Finally, the Power of Community was our Take Action Project and Bronze Award.  They interacted quite a bit with the community when they went before the school board and collected plastics at graduation. They were encouraged to educate the public as well by writing newspaper articles.  I would pull lines from each of the girls articles when I composed articles, making them feel a part of the effort. We also did an extensive search on what products can and cannot be recycled and how items were recycled like paint, medications, steel, foam, old furniture, electronics, anything that cannot go in the curbside recycle bin.

Any questions, let me know.   And if your troop did something unique to earn the Agent of Change Journey please post below for other readers.
If you would like these attachments in pdf Format simply e-mail me:  girlscoutleaderx2@gmail.com