Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia is happy to announce a new collaboration with Bainbridge College. The partnership, which will connect student teachers enrolled in the Early Education Program at the college  with a local Girl Scout troop, will kick off on July 14, 2012 with a Science for Kids Event.
 
Science for Kids will be held from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon at the local Bainbridge campus. Girls in kindergarten – 8th grades are invited to attend. Registration will begin at 9:30 a.m. the day of the event. Event cost is $2.00 for registered Girl Scouts and $14.00 for girls who are not yet Girl Scouts. This $14 fee includes the cost of the event plus annual Girl Scout registration. It will entitle participants to attend troop meetings and other Girl Scout events throughout the year.
 
The exciting collaboration began when Decatur County Girl Scout Service Unit 422 Recruiter and Journeys Coordinator, Johnette Weiss, contacted Professor Valley Rogers, Education Program Director/Assistant Professor of Education at Bainbridge College.  The vision was to incorporate a local Girl Scout troop with student teachers enrolled in the Early Education Program at the college.  Mary Beveridge, Membership Coordinator for Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia, Weiss and Rogers worked together merging the two programs into one.

This program is a win/win partnership for Decatur County, Bainbridge College and Girl Scouts of the Historic Georgia. Working with Girl Scouts will give student teachers the hands-on experience of developing and presenting lesson plans and conducting activities with the girls during meeting times.  Another benefit will be working with children in a teacher/student relationship to develop skills at various levels that will be beneficial during their teaching careers. 
“I am confident that this type of exercise will enhance the student teachers understanding, development, and knowledge base through application,” said Rogers.

This year marks Girl Scouts 100th Birthday.  Founder Juliette “Daisy” Gordon Low assembled 18 girls from Savannah, Georgia, on March 12, 1912, for the first Girl Scouts meeting. She believed that all girls should be given the opportunity to develop physically, mentally, and spiritually. With the goal of bringing girls out of isolated home environments and into community service and the open air, Girl Scouts hiked, played basketball, went on camping trips, learned how to tell time by the stars, and studied first aid.

One hundred years later, Girl Scouts is still relevant. The Girl Scout Leadership Development Program includes a series of age-appropriate “Journeys”.  The Journeys program  has been correlated (by grade level) to the new national Common Core Standards and the 21st Century Skills standards, as well as to the Health & PE, Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies learning objectives for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. 

The Common Core Standards, developed and approved in 2010 by a bipartisan group of governors and educators, provide a shared framework for learning and teaching objectives specifically for English Language Arts and Mathematics for most US students. The 21st Century Skills standards focuses on blending subject-skills with life and career skills; information, media, and technology skills; and other key skills necessary to develop multi-dimensional abilities to succeed in the new century.
For more information, contact Mary Beveridge at 229-227-6599 or mbeveridge@gshg.org. To learn more about Girl Scouting, visit www.gshg.org.