Planning a Take Action Project with Daisies
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What is a Take Action Project?
Take Action Projects are a key component of Girl Scout Leadership Journeys. In fact, the Take Action Project is what takes the Journey from a badge earned, to a Journey, and ultimately can lead to a scout earning their Summit Award.
According to the GSUSA website, Take Action Projects are meant to be sustainable. This means that a TAP goes a step beyond community service to have a lasting impact after the immediate project is over.
For example, a great community service project might be a food or clothing drive to help those in need within the community. However, this is not a Take Action Project, because once the drive is completed and the items donated, the project’s impact is complete.
Taking this a step further, a food drive could become a Take Action Project by adding something that makes it last, such as an education campaign that describes the need in the community and educates others on how they can help beyond the food drive, or by working within the community to make it a recurring event (ie: a holiday food drive that is set up to reoccur every year at a certain place).
What Can Daisies Do?
I am continuously surprised when I hear the judgment that Daisy Scouts are too little to complete certain scouting activities (within the safety checkpoints and with reasonable expectations, of course).
To be clear, I am not a professional expert in anything related to Girl Scouts– I am a volunteer just like you, but I am hoping to share some tips and advice related to Take Action Projects to enable your younger scouts to start developing their leadership skills. You know your troop and scouts best, so take my suggestions if they are helpful, and make them work for you and your troop.
A great introduction to the concept of Take Action Projects and the thought process, in my opinion, is the Think Like a Programmer Journey. Don’t worry– you do not need to know how to code, and your scouts do not need to sit at a computer for this badge.
In fact, the concept of this badge is to think about how to solve problems by breaking them down into steps. The volunteer guide walks through “programs” like “getting ready for school” and “planting a seed.” There are other puzzles that are meant to be challenging as well because the idea of this badge is not to teach kindergartners how to develop software, but to learn how to solve big problems, by breaking them down into smaller, manageable parts.
I would encourage you to think of Journeys this way as well. By keeping it girl-led, you can focus on teaching them how to identify a problem, brainstorm ways to solve it, and then actually carry out their plan. This is the purpose of Journey work for the younger scouts; they are just learning how to do Journey work, and the process is the point.
So How Do We Do It?
Every situation will be different, and there may be times when you have a project in mind from the start. You can decide to go this route, but I would encourage you to start with a brainstorming session to identify a problem and only offer guidance when needed.
Example: Our Daisies brainstormed problems that they would like to solve in their community. Many of these ideas had the common theme of “solving bullying.” If we had gotten more ideas, we would have voted on one problem to solve, but many of the scouts identified bullying as an issue to solve, even if they explained it in varying ways.
Next, identify how to solve the problem. Depending on the size of your troop, you may want to split into smaller groups of 2-4 scouts. They may need support with writing down their ideas. Even if an idea does not seem feasible, applaud their thinking, and try to offer alternatives.
Example: Our scouts suggested having a school assembly that focused on anti-bullying efforts, writing an anti-bullying book to share, and creating an anti-bullying video campaign for social media.
Next, discuss the options, and have a vote.
Example: Our troop voted for the anti-bullying video.
Plan for the Take Action Project to take several meetings, because the next step is to develop a plan. At the Daisy level, you will likely need to offer guidance, so I would recommend preparing a list of questions to prompt their thinking.
Example: Who will be in the video? What will we say and do in the video? What should we wear? What props will we need? How will we record the video? Who should record it? What should we ask that person to do?
The next step is to carry out the project! Make a plan to gather supplies and needed materials, and finish the work that needs to be done.
Example: We made a list of everything that would be needed, and sent it home with families for the next meeting. The scouts worked with the leaders to write down the script and assign different roles. Then, we filmed the video, and I edited it to share with their families.
No matter what project is identified by your troop, remember that the important piece is taking action. Your volunteer toolkit will likely explain that there will be times when a project is too big to achieve as a troop, however, the scouts can still identify it, plan it out, and find a way to attempt it.
Example: One of our Brownies identified a lack of children's medicine in standard first aid kits, which was problematic during a camporee. While she was not in a position to single-handedly develop a new product, she identified which company could make an impact, did her research, and wrote a letter to their support team with her reasoning and recommendations. While she did not build a physical kit, she did the research to identify a solution and reached out to take action and hopefully address it to the best of her ability.
Happy Scouting!
