Follow the requirements of the “Get to Know Nuclear” patch for Girl Scouts to help the girls earn the patch and learn about nuclear science and technology. This will involve some presentations, but also some activities and demonstrations. See attached material for more information.
- Nuclear 101
- STEM – General
- Primary School Students
- Secondary School Students
Outside Contacts:
Girl Scout Council Community Relations Manager – title may vary for each area. Coordinating with this person will help to make it an official event, as well as assist in advertising the event by getting it posted to the website.
Inside Contacts:
Security, to make sure any required rooms are open and if the girls can tour the plant/facility.
WIN Members, for volunteers to help run the event.
Facility/Setup:
We began the girls all together in the same room to provide an overview presentation of nuclear science, radioactive decay methods, how a plant works, etc. Then we broke them up into groups, by age, and had a rotation of breakout sessions. These sessions had the activities for the girls, such as M&M half-lives and cloud chambers. Once the groups each had a chance to visit all of the stations, we brought them back together for lunch and to listen to some people discuss their career in nuclear
Supplies:
Candy: M&Ms/Skittles, marshmallows, licorice, Mike & Ikes, etc.
Graph Paper, pencils, dose calculation sheets from ANS website, patches (available on the ANS website), Cloud chamber (including alcohol and dry ice), button sources and Geiger Counters, ping pong balls
Equipment:
Laptop and projector for each room, if you wish to use a presentation to go with each activity
Presentation Material:
See attached
Event Preparation:
Group meeting to plan, arrange for lunch on the event day, ask for volunteers to assist and to speak about their career
Advertising/Notification of Event:
We asked the local council to advertise on their website, we advertised on our social media platforms, one of our members is also a GS leader, so she advertised to the troop leaders that she knows.
Lessons Learned:
We ended up planning too many activities for the day, so some of them we did not get to, but that’s okay since they girls were still really engaged with what we did implement, and they were still able to learn something. We chose to have people come speak about their careers instead of the listed activity, which is to “dress up like a scientist”. If you are hosting this at a plant for a facility with a reactor, or something to tour, try to let to girls see that instead of maybe one of the activities. We just do not have something like that on our campus.