The Girl Scout “Emergency and Survival Preparedness: workshop I taught over the weekend went well. We had two 3-hour programs, the first for middle school aged girls, in which 22 girls and several Leaders took part. The second for 13 high school aged girls and several Leaders. The focus of the workshop was preparing for emergencies and kit creation. I want to thank Dough for generously allowing me to use some materials from the ETS web site for a PowerPoint presentation. I currently do not have any photos, a Leader did take some of the first workshop, so I am hoping to obtain a few at some point in time.

We started off with an “experiment” soaking cotton, wool blend and synthetic clothing in water and hanging them outside, checking them at the end of each class, so the girls would have an idea of how different clothing materials could make a difference in surviving a dunk in water. Then had a PowerPoint presentation on emergencies, the “Rule of Threes”, “STOP”, “Hug-A-Tree”, making priorities, how to prepare and general survival information. We then reviewed several survival kits pointing out both good and poor components and designs/contents. The girls then put together their own kits.

We are now making plans for another workshop in April or May on fire making, shelter building and basic cooking.

Pete

Good Work..i like the clothing demo for a starter..i'm sure as the summer rolls in that more and more of the posters here will chime in with the workshops and programs they had a hand in..
confidence building is what it's all about..

Pete,

Sounds like a great demo. Any chance on seeing the powerpoint?

Mike

It's wonderful for you to be doing that!

When I joined the GS, I thought we would learn things and go on camping trips. Instead, after sinking money into the uniform, all we did was sell calendars, sell cookies, and make some kind of little quilt pieces that were never finished.

Sue

I think I can figure to how to e-mail it to you if you wish.

Truthfully, the PowerPoint itself is not that big of a deal, I used it mainly as an attention getter and to provide me with visual cues for the verbal meat .

Pete

Sure, send it along... would like to see your talking points.

PM me your e-mail and I will take a shot at sending it.

Pete

Your PM is full... You can look at my profile for my email.

I think I've written here before about my disappointments with the Girl Scouts, so THANK YOU for doing such a great job! I hope those girls' parents appreciate it, too.

The scouting experience both for boys and girls varies greatly from one troop to another, it's hard to generalize. I've had my daughter's troop outside and overnight a great deal more often than most other troops. The council office in St. Paul runs a great variety of programs making access easy, it's just a matter of leaders making the time to get the girls outside.