Recently in Journeys Category

What makes a great Girl Scout year? Earning badges, hiking and camping, taking field trips, selling cookies, and enjoying Girl Scout traditions. Now you can tie all that together with a choice of two leadership journeys.

Six illustrated maps, one for each grade level, have been created to show how all Girl Scout activities -- earning badges, camping, selling cookies and more -- can tie into the new Journeys. Go to www.girlscouts.org/program/journeys/maps/ and start exploring!

Journey 2, "It's Your Planet - Love It" are now available at GSSA Shops

Our girls are the most enviromentally-aware young people since the "Green Movement" of the 70's. The new Journeys help them develop and focus that interest.  They'll learn about the earth and have fun!  Here are the details:

Girl Scout Daisies: Between Earth and Sky -- On this journey, flower friends take to the road, living the Girl Scout Law with new friends and old. Join them for sunshine, fresh air, and colors and shapes, too--and big Daisy lessons.

Girl Scout Brownies: WOW Wonders of Water -- Girl Scout Brownies find plenty of ways to WOW! themselves and everyone else on this journey. You'll find everything you need to guide the girls to LOVE water, SAVE water, and SHARE what they know.

Girl Scout Juniors: Get Moving! -- This journey offers endless energy in all its forms and functions, plus ways big and small to Energize, Investigate, and Innovate. So get set to guide Girl Scout Juniors to see that energy is what leaders are all about.

Girl Scout Cadettes: Breathe -- On this journey called BREATHE, there's plenty of space for Girl Scout Cadettes to focus all their senses on air. And all along the way, you'll be guiding the girls to their very best flair!

Girl Scout Seniors: Sow What? -- When it comes to food, what's really best for people and the planet? Girl Scout Seniors will figure that out (with you!) as they dig into far-reaching food networks on this Sow What? journey.

Girl Scout Ambassadors: Justice -- On this journey to JUSTICE, Girl Scout Ambassadors create a brand-new equation for something Earth and all its inhabitants need. Do you yearn for it, too?

With the input of a Pathways Advisory Team and thousands of volunteers and council staff from across the country, Girl Scouts of the USA is developing Girl Scout Pathways--the ways girls and adults participate in Girl Scouting--that will align with the New Girl Scout Leadership Experience. GSUSA invites you to join us in shaping the future of Girl Scout Pathways, which we anticipate introducing to the Girl Scout community by fall 2010.

We encourage volunteers to participate in this survey, which will take approximately 15-20 minutes to complete. Please take this survey by May 15. We appreciate your participation!

To take the survey, click the link or visit http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=967249.

Each of the six membership levels of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience takes girls on a journey--a voyage to someplace new, with adventures along the way. These adventures engage girls in exploring the three keys to leadership--discover, connect, and take action.

But it is not just what girls do, it is how they do it. Beneath the fun and excitement of the books, the work of our experts ensures that girls are growing and developing their leadership potential in ways that are meaningful to them. The activities in the Girl Scout Leadership Experience embody the girl led, learning by doing, and cooperative learning processes.

On their journeys, girls grow in their understanding of themselves, of each other, and of how they can work together to change the world for the better. Each journey culminates in awards that help the girls see just how far they've come.

Getting Started:  The Recipe for a Great Adventure
All you need is a sense of adventure to guide girls on a great journey. Check out these five simple steps to getting started:

1. Boot up your computer and take a 10-minute walk through the Girl Scout Leadership Experience interactive resource at www.girlscouts.org/gsle. This bilingual interactive resource is designed for the busy volunteer. A guide talks you through each component of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience and provides clear definitions, illustrating how each piece is part of a well-researched, powerful, and change-making experience for girls.
2. Kick off your shoes and sit down to relax. Yes, this is where the real fun starts. Read the (age-appropriate for your troop) girl journey book as if you were a girl just for the pleasure of it.
3. Break out your accompanying adult guide and flick straight to the sample sessions at a glance two-page spread for a "bird's eye" view of how to bring journeys to life.
4. Now that you know what is possible, invite the girls (and their parents) to use their imaginations to make the journeys real in ways that excite them (girl led). You do not have to do everything as exactly as laid out in the books. The books are a great resource with lots of room for creativity. Remember, the books just provide the vanilla scoop: The girls and you add the sprinkles!
5. Now step back and watch how the girls, with your knowledge, support, and guidance, have enormous fun and a rewarding experience.

Throughout the journey--and even before--volunteer and staff members are there to offer crucial support and advice with learning opportunities. Don't hesitate to contact us: Teri Eversole at 251.344.3330, ext: 1302, and Cheryl Miller at 334.272.9164, ext: 2302.

Girl Scouts of Southern Alabama joins Girl Scouts around the nation to make the world a better place and celebrate Girl Scout Week, March 8-14.  The week honors the 97^th anniversary of Girl Scouting in the United States, which falls on March 12.

 What's New

 Girl Scouts proudly presents the Girl Scout Leadership Experience, a curriculum that fosters specific leadership qualities such as self-esteem, positive values, critical thinking, community spirit, and the ability to educate and inspire.  The Girl Scout Leadership Experience takes girls beyond single-interest badges into a series of themed activities based on the understanding that a true leader needs to do three things: discover herself and her values, connect to care about, inspire, and team with others, and take action to make the world a better place.  For example,  Girl Scout Juniors in fourth and fifth grades can now pursue single-interest badges on topics from computers to wildlife to field sports, or take a longer journey to become an "agent of change," earning three badge awards along the way to solve a problem together with community members.

Other recent changes include an updated Girl Scout uniform: girls can wear a tunic, sash, or vest to display their pins and awards combined with their own solid white shirts and khaki pants or skirts. Girl Scouts in high school can also wear a scarf like that worn by Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 144 nations.

 Girl Scouts of the USA has more than three million members and is the leading authority on girls. Girl Scouts travel the world, learn twenty-first century business skills, and prepare for a high-tech future. The Girl Scout Leadership Experience reaches girls in every zip code, including locations in public housing, homeless shelters, juvenile detention centers, women's prisons, immigrant communities, and isolated rural areas.

Q: Can girls still earn badges, apart from journeys?
A: Girls are welcome to continue choosing and earning badges that represent their varied interests. Earning badges is an important tradition in Girl Scouting and it is here to stay! As adults and girls become more familiar with the elements of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience, they will even be able to see how the Discover, Connect, and Take Action leadership keys can be integrated into earning badges.

Of course, no matter what activities girls do in Girl Scouting, the experience is always best when it incorporates the Girl Scout processes: Girl-Led, Learning by Doing, and Cooperative Learning.

Q: What is the future of badges?
A: Over the next several years, Girl Scouts of the USA will be updating some badges to ensure the learning experiences tie to the national leadership outcomes intended for girls. As new or refreshed badges become available and "old" badges are phased out, girls will have time to transition. They will not "lose out" on activities they have begun or planned. 

Girl Scout members have expressed interest in the availability of badges online and GSUSA is considering and analyzing this possibility. Further information will be available in 2009.

Q: What about local badge activities?
A: Locally created badge activities remain an important way to respond to the interests and needs of girls. By using the Leadership Experience as the "engine" for all programming, Girl Scout councils will be able to begin adjusting local offerings, purposefully planning them based on the leadership outcomes intended for girls.

Do I keep using my current handbooks and materials, even though we are starting with the new Journeys?

Keep using them. It will take several years to create sufficient new program materials for each age level, and there are many great examples of our Discover, Connect, Take Action leadership philosophy at work in the existing materials. Refer to the Winter 2006 issue of Leader Magazine: (Setting the Pace for the Future: The Girl Scout Leadership Model  and Activity Tip Sheets) for tips on how to adapt existing materials to the new leadership philosophy. Existing materials will begin to be phased out around 2010.