Lafayette College hosted its second annual Girl Scout Badge Day on Sunday, a highly anticipated event that involved cookies, rubber ducks and, of course, badges.
“The best part for me is just seeing the reactions from scouts when they get to be on campus,” said co-coordinator Kelly Huth, assistant director of community communications at Lafayette and a Girl Scout troop leader.
Over 80 Girl Scouts from the region attended two sessions across campus to earn a badge in areas such as space science, entrepreneurship and cybersecurity.
“We wanted to be able to cultivate a space where we could run many sessions in one area that would be taught by experts who really had expertise in that field,” said Jodi Fowler, a co-coordinator of the program and associate director of civic leadership for the Landis Center for Community Engagement.
Almost all of the sessions that were featured this year were completely new from last year.
“We wanted people who engaged last year and troops and students who engaged last year to be able to engage again, even if they were in the same level, so that they could come and find a whole new batch of different badge sessions,” Foster said.
Upon completion of the workshops, participating scouts were given official badges that can be presented to the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania and the greater organization of Girl Scouts USA to advance in the ranks of the organization.
The Daisy and Brownie Scouts were aided by over 60 faculty and student volunteers.
“I love how it helps foster leadership and empowerment for girls of all ages,” said Dean of Engineering Jenn Rossmann.
The event primarily focused on STEM-related activities, with many of the badges difficult to find elsewhere or taking months to acquire.
“It can be a multi-part thing, and there’s lots of supplies that need to be gathered, and different kinds of expertise required of an instructor,” Rossmann said.
Student volunteers who participated in the event noted its importance for the younger scouts.
“It’s just a really good way for troops to be able to expand their horizons and also with other troops in the area that might be further away,” volunteer Alivia Bear ‘28 said.
One session Bear assisted was on plant biology, where a group of elementary school scouts learned about plant vocabulary and measurements.
“Very basic, but good for that age group,” she said.
Another session had the scouts designing and constructing paper airplanes with the Society for Women Engineers.
“They got to test the things they built outside, and then if it didn’t work, they got to go back inside and revisit what could be better, what could be improved,” Huth said. “To me, that’s what this day is about.”
Fowler said that many parents had stopped to compliment the event and express how happy their participating children were.
“I find that my scouts love when they can connect what they’re learning through their badges to a real-life experience,” Huth said. “We want them to have that opportunity to ask these great questions and to really learn from our Lafayette students.”