After more than eighty hours of preparation, it all came down to ten hours of having to be adaptable, engaging, and organized. I was looking at four days of overflowing energy and enthusiasm with the daunting task of keeping the attention of thirty-seven children for an educational summer camp. My plan was to facilitate activities and experiments, but I encountered learning on a much deeper level.
For my Girl Scout Gold Award, I organized and led a STEM in Action day camp for children grades K-6 during the summer. The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest honor that a Girl Scout can earn. Because I fit the category of an introverted teenager, this project was breaking down the walls of my comfort zone like a wrecking ball. For this project, I would present a proposal to a committee to obtain funding, organize a group of volunteers, create a lesson plan, and collect all the supplies needed to keep children focused, learning, and having …show more content…
My public speaking skills have increased dramatically, and I also now know I am capable of engaging and containing thirty-seven elementary students, which is quite a large feat. These skills were the outcomes I expected from the beginning of the project. A concept I never thought I would have learned from this project had an even greater effect. This exceptional concept was the curiosity and drive to learn. These children were so excited about learning new things, asking questions, and creating their own experiments. And for what? They weren’t preparing for a test or trying to earn an A in the class; they were learning because they wanted to learn and for pure enjoyment. This drive to learn has been lost within many students, like me, because we have come to the conclusion that the reason we should learn the material is for the grade in the class or a score on the test or to get to the next step in our