Updated Pyramid

Breaking news!  Recently, the Girl Scout Silver Award pyramid has been modified.  Remember our first post, about the Pyramid?  We had eight steps in our post.  Well, now the Pyramid only has six steps!  The last two steps, "Make a plan and put it into motion," and "Reflect and celebrate," have gotten the cut.  The first six steps, though, are exactly the same, fortunately!  So, to refresh your memory, the Pyramid now looks like this:

1. Go on a journey.
2. Identify issues you care about.
3. Build your team.
4. Identify issues in your community.
5. Pick your take-action project.
6. Develop your project.

Fewer steps is alright with us!  Although... now we have only two weeks of posting our steps left!
~ Troop 60435

Step 2: Identify Issues You Care About

Step 2 in the pyramid is "Identify Issues You Care About."  We did this step individually, but also as a troop.Some of the issues in the world we decided we care about:

1.) Bullying - We decided that we don't want to be bullied, and neither do other people.  As mentioned in our aMAZE post, everyone deserves the right to be accepted.  Bullying prevents world-wide acceptance, which is why we think that pro-peace is an important cause to fight for.

2.) Global Warming - Once our atmosphere is destroyed, there is nothing we can do to fix it.  What will the world come to?  Recycling or a recycling project would be a good way to solve on millionth of this enormous problem, which is why we considered a project such as this for our Silver Award.

3.) Lack of Education - Children need a proper education.  Without proper knowledge of the world and society around them, children are seriously stunted in their ability to go through life in an informed and connected.  Ignorance is not bliss.  Perhaps obliviousness is bliss, but ignorance certainly isn't.  We weren't sure how we could remedy this issue, which is why we decided to leave such an important topic to the professionals.

~Troop 60435

Step 1: The aMAZE Journey

Following the steps of the Pyramid, our first stop is the aMAZE Journey. 

"Twists and turns, dead-ends and u-turns, everyday is a maze of possibilities. In the maze of life, you encounter everything that's fun and confusing and funny and difficult about finding your way... A maze can represent all of life, or just one important experience...mazes mean possibilities- so go ahead, choose a path" ~ aMAZE. 

The aMaze journey focused around one simple, yet incredibly complex thing... life, love, and your relationship with your friends.  Everyday of your life is a maze, with countless options, countless possibilities, and countless possible mistakes.  Some days, you might reach the end, and others, you might wander around a bit before getting to where you want to go.  The aMAZE book helps you confront and conquer relationship issues, and informs you on how to prevent them in the first place. Acceptance of each other's faults is one of the most important skills in life, and we learned this in aMAZE.  This journey helped us choose our Silver Award theme... Promote peace and understanding to everyone! 

~Troop 60435

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The above activity is called "What Really Matters."  This was my favorite activity out of the whole aMAZE book! In "What Really Matters," you had to check off the qualities that you believed mattered when choosing your friends. An excerpt from the list: Does intelligence matter when choosing your friends?  How about race? And is your friend fun to be with? If you said that the first two questions didn't matter when choosing friends, and the last one did, you're on the right track! This activity promotes understanding and acceptance. Sometimes, the best friends you'll ever have may be from different backgrounds than you are. They may not be as smart as you are. Everyone deserves the right to be accepted, though. This activity teaches us to judge people by their personalities, not by their physical characteristics.

~Margaret

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This activity shows you some types of bullies and their actions. When people think of a bully, they usually picture someone who is stealing lunch money. But bullying behavior incluses gossiping, excluding, manipulating, and even name-calling. When I completed the first activity on this page, I chose the girl with her hand raised to her mouth as a bully, whispering to someone, because I knew that gossiping and spreading rumors is bullying. I also thought that to choose the girl with her fists raised would be stereotypical. But really, any of those girls could be a bully. Still, you can never truly tell a bully based on how she looks. A person isn't always a bully, they may only act like a bully sometimes. Everyone acts like a bully at one time or another. Another reason I chose this page was because of the quote at the top: We must reject the view that to be a victor, you must have a victim; to stand tall, you must stand on someone. --Harriet Woods This quote is so true. As a whole, this activity gave me a wider understanding of the behavior of bullies.
~Jillian

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This last activity shows how a witness to bullying really can do something about it. Then, to test your skills, you can pick out the bully, victim, and witness in the "Locker Room Chatter" story. There were four more of these stories, so you can comment for more! This was my favorite activity in the book because I didn't know a witness could be avoiding standing up for so many different reasons! You can see a few types of witnesses in the green box on the first page. Also, in my opinion, the identifying activity was really fun. The aMAZE journey in general was a fun and involved way to learn about non-bullying, or pro-peace, unlike in most schools where they take you to assemblies and somebody does a monologue and a handful of students get involved. Along with the book, my troop did a peacemaker kit. Our peacemaker kits were little boxes full of stuff that reminded us of friendship and our responses to positive quotes. The aMAZE jouney was one of my most memerable activities of my girl scouting experiecne.

~Alison

The Pyramid

To complete the Silver Award, you are required to follow a set of steps called, by us, the Pyramid.  The steps are:
1. Complete a Journey
2. Identify issues you care about
3. Build your Girl Scout Silver Award team
4. Explore your community
5. Pick your take-action project
6. Develop your project
7. Make a plan and put it into motion
8. Reflect, share your story, and celebrate.

We will be posting about how we completed these steps every week, beginning next week. Then we will all individually post further explanations and our opinions, as well as why this project and mission statement is important to each of us.

~ Troop 60435