Girl Scouts Global Action Award 2013

For Daisies

One thing I love about Girl Scouts is how well it compliments homeschooling. I am super excited that the patch-earning opportunities provide reason and motivation for us to study important skills and issues that fall outside the realm of our standard curriculum.

When I learned of the Girl Scouts Global Action Award, I knew it was something I wanted to do right away with Tessa. Tessa is passionate and empathetic, so I knew earning this patch would make an impact. To me, the award embodies what Girl Scouts is all about...growing girls who as adults will have the confidence, motivation, skills and education to confront the major issues of the world.

There are several options for earning the Global Action Award. While the activities we completed touched upon several of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, we primarily focused on 1. Ending hunger and poverty. We completed activities one and nine from the Global Action Award for Girl Scout Daisies activities list.

Heifer International offers some wonderful learning resources that I think do a good job covering hunger and poverty for Tessa's age set. The lessons I chose to use revolve around the book Beatrice's Goat by Page McBrier.

What We Did

Completed Global Action Award for Girl Scout Daisies activity one, which involved discussing questions about hunger.
Read Beatrice's Goat by Page McBrier.
Completed "Understanding the Story of Beatrice and Her Goat, Lesson 1" by Heifer International.
Used components of "The Places We Live: Comparing and Contrasting, Lesson 4" by Heifer International to help Tessa locate Uganda on our globe.
Completed Global Action Award for Girl Scout Daisies activity nine, which involved Tessa drawing a picture of a girl (Beatrice) in another country. I extended the activity by having Tessa draw herself and items that symbolize how Beatrice's life differs from her own as well. I got this idea from the previously mentioned Heifer International lesson.
Read A Good Trade by Alma Fullerton.
Looked at pictures, read excerpts from, and discussed the African and United States sections of What the World Eats by Faith D'Aluisio.
Purchased a share of a goat via Heifer International.
Used "When Life Hands You Milk, Make Cheese" recipe to make cheese from milk.

Tessa drew a picture of how Beatrice's life differs from her own. It included items that symbolize the differences in the food they eat, how their houses are built, education and chores, among other things.

Since Beatrice's goat made such an impact in her life, Tessa and I purchased a share of a goat via Heifer International in hopes of helping a family in need in a similar way.