NEM: Super Engineers!

March is National Engineering Month and we celebrated this week by taking part in the Engspire "Super Engineers!" program. Engspire provided us with a complete meeting-in-a-box - all we had to add was scissors and pencils. We received a complete set of instructions, all supplies needed to complete the activities, and a crest for each girl.

As the girls arrived, they completed their Dues books and checked their Patrol Notebooks. Some Patrols were asked to finish their Patrol activity planning from last week, while others were asked to work on making birthday cards for the 30th Anniversary of Rainbows (5-7 year olds in the UK) for the birthday card exchange.

We had our usual opening ceremony and then moved right into our activities.

The Super Engineers program uses a story line about the group escaping from the lair of an evil genius to tie the activities together:

After an epic battle the evil genius has managed to take you and your team of Super Engineers captive and is keeping you in the dungeon of a castle, on a top secret island! How can you use your collective engineering skills to escape his evil clutches before he returns and feeds you all to his pet shark?

 Activity #1: Electrical Engineering

First things first, it's pretty dark down here in the dungeon; we could do with some light to see if we can find a way out! You feel around in the dark and find some lightbulbs, a car battery and some foam and plastic pieces. How can you use these items to create a light to find the door?

Each girl built their own working flashlight using an LED, CR2010 battery, foam sheet and card.  We learned the right way to connect an LED and how circuits work. 

Activity #2: Software Engineering

Success! Now we can see around the dungeon and discover that there's a single door at one end and it's not even locked! You're about to rush out when you get a funny feeling something's not right. Next to the door you see what looks like a map of the castle showing the way out! The only problem is that also on the map are some symbols showing obstacles which will definitely cause you to be caught, or worse. Before setting out you decide to figure out your route to make sure that your whole team stays safe and also decide that the instructions should be written in code just in case you're captured!

The girls were divided up into groups of 4 and given a code sheet. They had to follow the instructions and write out coded directions to make it through the room. 

Activity #3: Mechanical Engineering

You race outside of the cellar and escape from the castle only to find yourself looking out over an ocean. The lair is on an island. Off to one side you can see some land. You're just about to jump in and swim to safety when you see a fin sticking up out of the water - sharks! If you go in the water you're sure to be dinner! That means we have to go over. 

Strewn across the beach you find some driftwood and old ropes, how can you use this to get to safety before the evil genius discovers your escape?

Each girl was provided with a plastic spoon, 6 popsicle sticks and 5 elastic bands  and challenges to create a catapult to propel themselves (a large pompom) away from the island. A wide variety of catapults were created!

After cleaning up, we discussed the activities the girls had taken part in and learned about different types of engineering, We ended by handing out badges and closed with Taps.

March & April with the Pathfinders & Rangers

March and April were busy months for the Pathfinders and Rangers! We took part in activities for National Engineering Month, visited Ripley's Aquarium, earned the Cookies Rising, Up Close and Personal With Nature, and Be a Model Citizen Modules, and had lots of fun along the way!

Engineering
March stated off with a meeting to celebrate National Engineering Month! Two Pathfinders took part in the NEM Crazy Contraptions program with the Guides. See the post here http://caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2016/03/nem-2016-crazy-contraptions.html


Minute-To-Win-It Challenge!
The week before March Break, we decided to have some fun and spend an evening challenging ourselves with Minute-To-Win-It Challenges. All the necessary supplies were provided and the girls took turns drawing cards from a pile. To see the challenges we tried, download the PDF File.

Planning Meeting
Coming back from March Break, we turned to planning out our activities for the rest of the year. Our 3rd Year Pathfinder needs some specific Modules for her Canada Cord, and we are also looking forward to an Outdoors Night, taking part in the Great Canadian Shoreline Clean Up, and Camp in June.

Save the Banana!
March ended with a meeting devoted to bananas. The girls found out about Fair Trade Bananas, Organic Bananas, and the risk of the most commonly eaten bananas no longer existing. They were challenged to find out fast facts about bananas (did you know that more than 100 billion bananas are eaten every year worldwide?) and create a poster to share their new knowledge and inform younger girls. They also had to learn the words and actions to "Bananas of the World Unite" and sing it as a group, as well as sing any other banana-related songs they could think of, and create the 'best dressed banana'.

Cookies Rising
April started off with a Cookie meeting. The girls learned about the different types of cookiesGirl Guides have made and sold over the years. They then made a Fruit &
 Spice type cookie for everyone to try. While the cookies were baking, the group worked on budgeting for a Unit activity, creating a cookie selling plan and determining the roles needed for the cookie campaign and what skills could be applied to each task.

Girl Guide Cookies Through the Years

• The original 1927 cookie was a basic Sugar Cookie.
• In the 1930s, cookies were rich in fruits, nuts and spices. 
• In the 1940s and 1950s there were vanilla creme, maple cream, and shortbread cookies.
• Vanilla and chocolate sandwich cookies made their first appearance in 1953.
• 1960 saw the introduction of a sugar-topped cookie.
• We had peanut butter cookies for one year in 1988.
• Chocolatey mint cookies arrived in 1993.

Ripley's Aquarium

The Pathfinders and Rangers joined the Guides and groups from Brantford and Binbrook on a day trip to Ripley's Aquarium! See the post here http://caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2016/04/ripleys-aquarium.html

Reporting
Two Pathfinders joined the Guides on their visit to the Grand River Sachem. See the post here http://caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2016/04/be-reporter.html

Canadiana
Mid-April was spent working on the Be a Model Citizen Module and the Citizenship Certificate. A number of challenges were combined into a board game, with trivia questions and group challenges. Each player is a candidate in an upcoming election. They gain votes by correctly answer trivia questions in three categories - "Running the Country", "I Am Canadian", and "Exploring Canada". Election squares (red) allow players to move on extra spaces, or be sent back for following or forgetting about electoral processes. Group Challenges are added to cover larger activities. Download the game instructions, cards and information sheets in a PDF File.

Happy 50th Birthday Sangam!
April ended with a meeting to celebrate Sangam, held with the Guides. See the post here http://caledoniaguiding.blogspot.ca/2016/04/happy-50th-birthday-sangam.html

NEM 2016 - Crazy Contraptions

For our first meeting in March, the Guides and Pathfinders participated in the National Engineering Month Crazy Contraptions program. Unfortunately, they were not able to find facilitators for us, so we had to run the program ourselves.

The program organizers provided all the materials needed as well as crests for each participant.

We started out with our usual opening followed by an active game.

The first activity was called "Does/Is Your Engineer...".Each girl was given a card about an engineer. We all shared the name of our engineering and what they do before moving onto the questions. One side of the room was Yes and the other was No. With each question, the girls needed to decide if the statement applied to their engineer or not. This activity opened the girls eyes to the many types of engineering and also to the types of things that engineers do.

The main activity for the evening was building the Cam Toys. We divided the girls into small groups and had each group start by building one toy. They were given a kit, supplies and an instruction sheet. This took about half-an-hour or so with some frustration in getting things to stay together. Each group was then provided with enough kits to make a toy for each girl. This took the remainder of the meeting, but was not as straight-forward as it could be and led to some frustrations. Younger girls would have needed much more Guider intervention to complete this activity.

We ran into a number of challenges doing this activity, however, the girls were all involved and engaged for the entire evening.

Tips for This Activity

• Make a sample before hand so that you know how to put things together.
• Ensure you have lots of alternate methods of 'sticking' things together - i.e. clear tape, masking tape, duct tape, white glue, hot glue guns.
• Encourage the girls to experiment - there is really only one way to put it together in the end, but the girls should reach that conclusion themselves.
• Have an extra activity available for those who finish early. Girls/Groups will take different amounts of time. 

March & April with the Pathfinders

March started off with a craft night to make no-sew felt purses and to play our Murder Mystery night for the 3rd Year Guides.
The felt purses were made by cutting a fringe around three sides of two pieces of felt and knotting the pieces together.

The following week was March Break, so we didn't have a meeting. After March Break, we had a a Survivor Night. The girls were divided into two teams and each team had to come up with a name and make a team flag.

Next, we had a quick quiz on the three elements necessary for survival (water, fire, shelter), and a challenge to guess the contents of a first aid kit. Each team was then given a bucket of supplies to build a shelter, lay a fire, and put together a water filter.

April began with a Murder Mystery Night with the 3rd Year Guides. Each person had a character to play -

We used activities from the Secret Agent 007 Module and the BC CSI Challenge to solve the 'crime'.

• Lifting fingerprints using talcum powder, black paper and tape
• Comparing handwriting samples and trying to find their matches
• Extracting DNA from strawberries

Our next meeting was a planning night where the girls came up with plans for a PJ Night and an Awards Show Night. PJ Night was scheduled for the next week, however, no one remembered so one of the girl's mom's brought over the movie 'Frozen' to watch.

The next meeting was devoted to science and the Everything Comes From STEM module. We looked at the scientific method and then did some chemistry and engineering activities.
The Chemistry activities were both magic tricks:

1. Coloured Water - This trick requires a little bit of set up. You will need: 4 glasses, 4 teaspoons, water, white vinegar, food colouring, and baking soda. To prepare, fill 3 glasses half full with water and 1 glass half full with white vinegar. Place one drop of food colouring on 3 of the spoons. Fill all 4 spoons with baking soda, making sure to cover the food colouring. Arrange a tray with the 4 glasses and a spoon in front of each glass (the spoon with just baking soda is placed in front of the glass of vinegar, the 4th glass). Ask girls to come up and stir the white powder into the glass. The first 3 glasses will change colour (which is pretty cool, especially if you use different colours of food colouring), but the fourth will bubble up and overflow the glass!
2. Put a Candle Out With Air - Mix a small amount of vinegar and baking soda together in a glass. Light a candle and then put it out by 'pouring' the air out of the glass. (The vinegar and baking soda have produced carbon monoxide, which is heavier than oxygen, so it stays in the glass until it is 'poured' out and suffocates the flame on the candle.)

Our engineering activity was building catapults using popsicle sticks, tape, elastic bands and spoons. The creations were all different and very effective!
April ended with an Art Meeting to work on the Rembrandt & Co Module. We started out by talking briefly about Andy Warhol and how his art focused on mass culture items, such as packaged goods and celebrities. Each girl then made a set of 25 coloured circles using 5 different colours and created a design or pattern. This activity was based on the lifesavers art activity.

Next, each girl created a Warhal-inspired drawing. Our last activity was to look at urban art and graffiti. Each girl designed her own piece of art based on the examples we looked at.