Tech & Nature Challenge

This week we started the Canada 150 Challenge during Patrol Time and worked on the Quebec Tech & Nature Challenge for the remainder of the meeting.

We started off with 30 minutes of Patrol Time where each Patrol worked on their first set of chosen activities for the Canada 150 Challenge:

• Daffodil - Planned to start off with Beadwork (making beaded Canadian Flag Pins) but an incident with the beads ended this activity early; they then moved on to Puzzles & Quizzes (wordsearches, crosswords, mazes and fill-in puzzles about Canada)
• Trillium - Planned to start off with Beadwork (making beaded Canadian Flag Pins) but an incident with the beads ended this activity early; they then moved on to Canada-themed Games Great-Grandmother Played (Patrol games from the 1920s and 1930s)
• Pansy - Started out with Hockey Night in Canada (making sticks and a puck from paper and playing hockey with them), and then moved on to Northern Games (a series of Inuit games)
• Rose - Started with the 150 Challenge (getting active with 150), followed by the Trivia Challenge (Canadian trivia quizzes)

After cleaning up, we had our usual opening, followed by a game - Squirt.

Our first activity was Starburst Geology. Each Patrol was given 9 Starburst candies, tinfoil and wax paper and had to make up three packages of candies, numbered 1, 2 and 3. Package 1 was squished with their hands, package 2 was heated for 3 minutes and then squished, and package 3 was cooked for 10 minutes and left to cool until the end of the meeting.

We attempted to do a round-robin for the remaining four activities, but were unable to complete everything. The activities we worked on were:

Balloon Rockets (Physics)

For this activity, girls work in pairs. The straw is threaded onto the string. One girl holds one end of the string. The other girl brings the straw to her end of the string and inflates the balloon and tapes it onto the straw. When she lets it go, the force of the air moving out of the balloon will shoot the rocket along the string to the other end! The more you blow up the balloon, the faster and further it will go.

Floating Ball (Air Pressure)

Each girl cuts out a circle of paper and tapes it onto the short bendy end of a straw in a cone shape. Place a ball of foil inside the cone. Blow through the straw and watch the ball float!

Calculator Fun (Math/Technology)

We provided the girls with calculators, and they tried the Birth Date Detector and the Numbers to Words Flow Chart.

The Great Cookie Extraction (Mining)

This activity came from BC, and asked the girls to mine for chocolate chips while learning about resource extraction. 

We ended by unwrapping the Starburst rocks and talking briefly about how different types of rocks are formed. Package 1 represented sedimentary rocks (created by pressure), package 2 represented metamorphic rocks (created by pressure and heat), and package 3 represented igneous rocks (created through extreme heat).

To finish the meeting, the girls played a game with a bouncing ball, followed by reminders for Friday and Taps.

Downloads:

• Quebec Tech & Nature Challenge (GGC Quebec Council)
• Calculator Fun Sheet
• Cookie Mining Activity

BC STEM Challenge: Math!

Did we really spend an entire meeting talking about Math? Yes! This week we explored STEM with the Math Challenge from BC. 

As the girls arrived, they completed their attendance and dues books and started colouring their Flextangle patterns. We then had our usual opening, followed by a Tag game. 

The girls then split up into their patrols and rotated through 4 challenge activities. 

Activity #1 - Tangrams

A tangram (page 23-24) is an ancient Chinese puzzle using 7 pieces made out of 3 shapes (triangle, square and parallelogram). The patrols had two challenges: first, they had to divide the pieces up among their members and try to make a square using all the pieces - and only touching their own pieces. Some patrols found this activity very easy, while others struggled. The second challenge was to see what other shapes they could form with the pieces. We had some creative results here, including a cabin and a tree.

Activity #2 - Code Breakers

For this activity, we used the Code Breakers activity sheet from the Challenge Pack (pages 25-28). The girls had to work with their patrols to solve a cryptogram where numbers stood in for letters, a block cipher, and code using a Cryptograph Wheel. 

Activity #3 - Nim

Nim (page 42-43) is a mathematical game, where players take turns removing pieces but trying not to take the last one. There are a few different variations of this game. We played using beads instead of sticks. The beads were laid out in a grid of three rows of five. The players then take turns removing beads. They can take 1, 2, 3 or 4 on each turn. After picking up the first bead, the next must be above, below or beside the first, not diagonal.

Activity #4 - Matchstick Puzzles

To solve the match stick puzzles, the Guides had to use their problem solving skills! We supplied a copy of the page of puzzles found in the Challenge Pack (page 34-35) and straws for the girls to work with. 

After clearing up from these activities, we played the Norwegian Number Game (page 30-31). In this game, girls make a large circle and link arms with a partner. One player is in the middle. The player in the middle runs and links onto the end of one pair. the player in the pair she doesn't link on to then runs to find a new partner, and so on. Girls cannot link onto the pair beside them. Whomever is left in the middle at the end of the count (30) is the "Old Maid". (We played it that they were the player to start in the middle for the next round.) While playing, everyone sings:

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten

eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty

One and twenty, two and twenty, three and four and five and six and twenty

Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty!

Our final activity was to finish up our Flextangles. Not everyone finished their colouring, but we showed them the completed examples and the instructions on folding their flextangle were on the bottom of the page. We downloaded and printed the template from Babble Dabble Do.

We closed with an enrolment of our last Guide, reminders for next week (dress warmly!) and Taps.

Fall Frolic 2015 - STEM

On Saturday, October 3rd 6 Guides and 2 Guiders attended Fall Frolic 2015 at Camp Teka in Paris along with about 250 other Sparks, Brownies, Guides and their Guiders. Despite the cold, windy weather we had a great time and the rain held off until the final activity of the day and didn't become heavy until shortly before the parents arrived to pick up the girls.

After opening and flag raising, we headed to our first station - Compass Games. The girls learned about the 8 main points of the compass and played a number of different games. They started off with a game where if they had the item that was called out (i.e. blue eyes, a brother, like pizza) they had to run to a given point. Next they had a choice of different games. The ones chosen were Foxlease Ball, where the girls form a tight circle and have to move a ball from North to South (or any other set of directions) using only their feet. If the ball goes outside of their circle, they have to return to their starting point. Another game was to make as many words as possible using the letters in the word COMPASS, and the last game was compass drawings.

Our second stop was a craft. We talked about DNA and what it does, and then each girl made a beaded double helix of her own.

After a snack and a drink, we headed onto our third session - Wide Games. Here the girls were challenged to gather the supplies necessary to recreate a molecule to save the world! Lots of teamwork was needed in order to put gain all the items and put the molecule together correctly.

After lunch, we moved onto a Games session where the girls took part in a relay race to complete various challenges and earn puzzle pieces. Once they had gathered all the puzzle pieces, they had to work as a team to put it together.

Our next stop was the Music session, where we sang Tall Trees, McDonald's, My Name is Flo, and played the Norwegian Number game - linking each song to a part of STEM. The girls also made up a STEM yell.

We ended the day with the Science session where the girls completed experiments in Chemistry and Physics. The Chemistry activity was chemical reactions, and the girls used baking soda and vinegar to power film canister rockets. This was hugely popular and the girls tried many times to see who's rocket would go the highest. The Physics activity was on centripetal force, which the girls tested by swinging yogurt containers about 1/4 full of water around on strings - and seeing for themselves that the container could be upside down, but the water stayed inside!

The day ended with a brief closing where we sang Make New Friends and Daylight Taps. We then walked back to the High School for pickup and the girls played on the play structure while we waited for parents to arrive.