Get Moving (Junior Journey)

The Get Moving Journey is part of the "It's Your Planet—Love It!" series.


 * Get Moving Journey as a Sleepover


 * Take the Energy Hog Challenge. This workbook includes a lot of information, including information on different types of energy, a quiz for auditing your home, an energy journal, and suggestions for family Hog Buster energy pledges.

A LA Times article highlighted the impact Girl Scouts can have on energy conservation using the Girls Learning Environment and Energy (GLEE) program: Science proves it: Girl Scouts really do make the world a better place.

In this Journey, you will:
Learn more about how to earn your Take Action Award — and help your community — with the Girl Scout Take Action Guide. Then use your leadership skills to earn your Bronze Award, the highest award for Girl Scout Juniors!
 * 1) Explore energy and how to use it wisely by interviewing power-use experts and conducting an energy audits of a building in your community.
 * 2) Plan a Take Action project to fix an energy problem in your community. Your could launch carpools, work to dim the lights on city buildings, or promote energy savings at your school.
 * 3) Earn 3 leadership awards: The Energize Award, the Investigate Award, and the Innovate Award. If you're a Girl Scout volunteer, go to Volunteer Toolkit for complete meeting plans and activity instructions.

Try two energy activities

 * Build your own wind turbine. BuildAWindTurbine.jpg Building the Basic PVC Wind Turbine project looks so awesome, we may have to do it!
 * Build your own wind mill
 * Make a wind-powered car using Lifesavers, straws, paper, tape and paper clips.
 * [phttp://www1.eere.energy.gov/education/pdfs/efficiency_comparinglightbulbs.pdf Compare different types of light bulbs], see which use more energy, get hotter, and give off more light.
 * Make your own flashlight
 * Recycled art. Try making these beautiful tropical fish with a 2-liter plastic bottle.
 * Create your eco-dream house online on the For Girls website.
 * Check out ways you can save energy on the For Girls website.

Check out how other people are tackling energy issues

 * Call your local energy provider(s) to see if they will give you a tour of their facilities and/or send a speaker to your troop meeting. For those in the Washington, DC/Maryland PEPCO region, they do not give tours, but you can request a speaker via the PEPCO website.

Work with your families to make an energy improvement at home

 * Girl Scouts of Our Nation's Capitol Lightbulb Challenge. Participate in the Pepco/Girl Scout Light Bulb Challenge - change an incandescent bulb to an energy efficient CFL or LED and track your changes on the GSCNC website. With your help Girl Scouts can change 60,000 bulbs!

Investigate energy use in a community building and suggest ways to make it more energy-efficient

 * How to save energy at school infographic. Energy-savings-for-kids.jpg
 * Energy efficiency in the home lesson plan. While you may not want to do this entire lesson plan, it does have some useful tables showing how much energy each appliance in your home uses and how much it may be costing you. The table for calculations at the end may be too complicated for 4th graders to do the math without some adult assistance, but 5th graders may be able to do it.

Identify an energy issue, make a plan, and take action
Bike route. The journey books here seem to focus on setting up a bike route to school. That may not be feasible for many schools/troops (my girls are in 5 different school, and some of them have to cross a major road to get there -- the only reason they get bussed is because of this road, in fact). So I wouldn't limit the project to this.

On the other hand, if a bike route works for your troop, one of our fathers (before we started working on this journey) set up a neighborhood 'bike train' on Fridays in the Spring. Kids in the neighborhood with a few adult volunteers would meet up at the neighborhood part with their bikes and ride together to school.

Zombie run. The Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois held a Zombie Run in 2013. This, or other holiday-themed runs, could be a fun way to get people moving! Shamrock Shake, anyone?

Skill Building Badges

 * Jeweler (Junior badge)
 * Gardener (Junior badge)
 * Detective (Junior badge)
 * Camper (Junior badge)
 * Independence (Junior badge)

Activities

 * Make homemade paper
 * Make a solar oven for camping
 * Make a battery
 * Take a Family Home Energy Quiz
 * Energy Awareness Activity Book with pages of puzzles, codes to break, mazes, etc.

Websites

 * U.S. Energy Information Administration. This website has some great pages for kids, explaining what energy is, energy sources, and using and saving energy.
 * Pepco Conservation Tips
 * Megawatt U kids website
 * U.S. Department of Energy lesson plans with a searchable database of different grade levels and subject matter.
 * Get Moving Session ideas

Take-Action Project ideas
Having trouble figuring out possible Take-Action projects? Look for ideas on the Take Action Project ideas page.