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aMaze Cadette Journey Take Action Project

April 21, 2018 By Laura

Girl Scout It’s Your World, Change It!

Given all of the challenges associated with navigating relationships in Middle School, it was no surprise that our troop chose to take the “It’s Your World, Change It!” (aMaze!) Cadette Leadership Journey.

For their Take Action Project, our girls decided to create a “talk show” called “GS Life”. Each girl portrayed a show “host” or “guest”. The guests represented different experts in the fields of bullying, cyber-bullying and body image. Their experts included psychologists, editors, authors and a student founder of a fictitious anti-bullying club called Friends Against Bullying (FAB). Our Girl Scouts wanted to educate themselves and others by raising awareness around important topics that are facing young girls around the world. They also wanted to provide guidance and offer resources to anyone who may be struggling with these issues. Our scouts created “bios” for each “subject matter expert,” and they spent many hours researching each of their topics. When they pulled all of their research together, they wrote an entertaining and informative script! They rehearsed for several weeks, with one of our scout dads stepping in as our cinematographer.

Sharing Our Take Action Project

Our Troop’s Take Action Project educated our scouts and sent a message to empower girls everywhere. Troop 288 wanted to let girls know that they can do anything! A copy of the video is currently available through the GSSC Service Unit 3 Library to share with all of our troops.

You’ll love the  Cadette Peace Journey Badge in a Bag®   from MakingFriends®.com. Our kit provides step-by-step instructions for you to guide your girls in completing their Cadette aMaze Journey. The program was designed to provide economical, hands-on activities to enhance the girls’ experience and also to make your time as a volunteer enjoyable and stress-free.

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LIFE SKILLS

Understanding take action activity, what is a take action activity, community service projects are different., activity details.

Time needed: 30 minutes

Materials needed: no materials required.

Setup:  Review the information below, then practice with the community service and take action project scenarios. Take Action and community service projects are different, but both are essential to Girl Scouting.

Community service projects are acts of kindness and important ways to help something or someone right now. They are commonly short-term projects that almost always multiply efforts that are already in place. Examples include collecting food for an existing food pantry, providing clothing or toiletries to people who have suffered during a disaster, cleaning up a rundown playground, or picking up trash at a park, forest, or beach.

Girl Scout Take Action projects address an issue by tackling the factors that cause or contribute to it. As you may expect, these projects have a far-reaching influence. They’re designed to change something for the better—forever. Projects associated with Journeys and the highest awards (the Girl Scout Bronze, Silver, and Gold Award) are Take Action projects.

When you take action, you work as a team to:

• Identify a problem
• Research the root cause of the problem
• Come up with a sustainable solution
• Develop a team plan
• Put the plan into action
• Reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and what you’ve learned

Here are three ways to create sustainable change:

• Make your solution permanent
• Educate and inspire others to be part of the change
• Change a rule, regulation, or law

See whether an idea is a community service or Take Action project.

Break into small groups and provide each group with a different scenario listed in table below—or as a full group, review one scenario at a time and work together to determine if it is a community service or Take Action project.

• If it’s a community service project, brainstorm how you might make it a Take Action project.
• If it’s a Take Action project, brainstorm how it might meet the following requirements: 1) it identifies the root cause of a community issue, 2) it works WITH the community, and 3) it has long-term benefits for the community. Bonus: Can you imagine a goal you might set and how you might lead a team?

Community Service and Take Action Project Scenarios:

Now that you know the difference, you’re ready to go!

Prepare to take action by completing a Journey or, if you’ve already done one and you’re a Girl Scout Junior, Cadette, Senior, or Ambassador, get started on your Bronze, Silver, or Gold Award, respectively.

Troop Leaders: The instructions for all badge steps are available free of charge in the  Girl Scout Volunteer Toolkit .

Girl Scout Activity Zone activities have been adapted from existing Girl Scout programming.

Explore more activities.

Create algorithms and rapid prototypes to teach others what they’re good at.

Learn a special skill that might come in handy at camp: knot tying!

Create a vision board to share your cookie business goals.

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Amaze: A crash course

Earning the journey awards.

• Meet up with another Cadette troop. Make friends.
• There are many programs that can set up pen-pals between people of different countries. Arrange for every girl in the troop to get a pen-pal. Make new friends.
• Set up a "secret psyche" within the troop. Pick names out of a hat. You are the secret psyche of the person whom you selected, and it is your job to make their life a little bit nicer, by leaving small gifts (set a limit of ten dollars to be spent over the projects entirety) or post-it notes with nice things written on them, etc. in their back pack or locker.

Diplomat (ideas for the take action project)

• Do a school-wide anti-bullying seminar
• Many schools have some form of a "peer mediator" group. If they do, encourage the girls to join it, if not, start one!
• Mentor a younger troop.
• Give each girl a small notebook to be used as a literal tool-box. Have each one read a quote from her notebook that she particularly likes.
• Put up posters around your meeting-place, displaying and spreading aforementioned quotes.
• Write letters to various political officiates about creating world peace.

Corresponding Badges

• Write a speech for a side of an argument that you believe strongly in. Now write an equally passionate one for the opposition.
• Watch a politician giving a speech. Do they look convincing? Do they look like they care? Why?
• Deliver your piece in the mirror or for a friend. Do you look convincing?
• When talking to your friends, try and pay attention to when something you say makes them happy. Keep note of this, and use it to make your friends happy.
• Look at the "Signature Strengths" chart on page four. Using this, make a list of your signature strengths and what activities would you use these in. Do at least three of these activities.
• Keep a journal. After several weeks, reread it. Look for patterns. What makes you happy? Spend more time doing those activities. What makes you unhappy? Avoid doing things that trigger sadness.
• View several episodes of a popular, humorous T.V. show. What makes the jokes funny?
• Experiment with an unconventional pro-or antagonist. Switch their roles, perhaps, or let the bad guy win.
• Dream up several typical story plots--rags to riches, boy meets girl, the kind of story where the hero's best friend dies, the hero gets the love interest, and the bad guy looses. Now write a plot where none of that happens.

Katie's Girl Scout Blog

Tuesday, january 1, 2013.

• aMAZE Journey: Planning the Take Action Project

I came across your blog in a Google search looking for TAP ideas for my Cadette troop. What are some of the ideas you came up with? My girls are having a tough time coming up ideas. Any help would be so appreciated!! Leader Wolf Troop 60546

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Easy Ideas for Girl Scout Journeys Take Action Projects

So you decided to do a Journey and the final component is the Take Action Project. The girls have to find a community need and create a way to solve the need on a consistent basis.  For example, a food drive is great, but it is a one time thing…unless the girls find a way to make some part of it sustainable. It needs to have a long lasting impact.

Photo from Pixabay

I read online about a troop who had a peanut butter and jelly food drive. The girls made the project sustainable by creating a pamphlet of peanut butter recipes that the food bank could be place in each bag of food. This could be copied over and over, making it sustainable.

A poster or a piece of artwork can also be a Take Action Project. For their Silver Award, these two Cadettes created a mural out of bottle caps and made a presentation to younger children about recycling. This piece of art is now a permanent fixture in the library.

A third kind of Take Action Project is to make a short video. YouTube is full of them, and they are there to be used by other leaders, as well as those who are looking for ideas on what to do for their TAP.

Creating a YouTube video will take time and of course, permission. You can make the video so that it will not be shared by others if that is a concern. Girls will have to write a script, get props, and rehearse before official filming begins.

The point of a TAP is to have the girls brainstorm ideas, put them into action, and in the process develop leadership and organization skills. As the leader, you want them to do something that is not only effective and has a positive impact in your community, but is also something they will actually complete. There are many incredible TAPs out there…in reality, these are completed by extremely dedicated groups and individuals. You know your troop best and what other activities you are competing against. Having your girls do a TAP that is doable for them is also part of the planning process.

Have you done a TAP?  What was it and how did it work out?

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aMAZE! is a Cadette Journey part of It’s Your World—Change It!

• 1 In this Journey, you will:
• 3 aMAZE! Badges

In this Journey, you will: [ ]

• Find out how to develop true friendships, navigate cliques, and move beyond stereotypes, with the ultimate goal of peace in your interpersonal relationships.
• Plan a Take Action Project that shares your new friendship-building skills.
• Earn 3 leadership awards: Interact, Diplomat, and Peacemaker. If you're a Girl Scout volunteer, go to Volunteer Toolkit for complete meeting plans and activity instructions.

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 Silver Award , the highest award for Girl Scout Cadettes!

Leadership Awards [ ]

• Interact Award
• Diplomat Award
• Peacemaker Award
• LiA (Leader in Action)

aMAZE! Badges [ ]

• Digital Movie Maker
• Eating for Beauty
• Public Speaker
• Science of Happiness
• Screenwriter 

Cadette aMaze Journey Series Session 1 (Program Full)

Life is a maze of relationships and in this journey Cadettes maneuver through all its twists and turns to find true friendships, plenty of confidence, and peace.

This Journey Series will run in 3 sessions. registrants must attend all 3 sessions

Session 1: Friday, March 11th from 5:00-6:30pm Session 2: Friday, March 18th from 5:00-6:30pm Session 3: Friday, March 25th from 5:00-6:30pm

Cadettes will get the aMAZE Journey Book, and Award Set Girls are responsible for completing a take action project on their own Questions? Email [email protected]

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Science students take up recycling in Moscow Region

'Clear Action' project has already sent off about 10 tons of paper to be recycled. Source: Press photo

The idea of a recycling system was suggested to Anton Fedorenko—a young scientist and a Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) student—by his friend last winter, and, as easy as April, he and his friends had presented a recycling project to Potanin Scholarship Charity Foundation, which helps outstanding students improve themselves. With the financial help of this foundation, as well as partial aid from the Institute, project “Clear Action” (“Chistoye Delo” in Russian) was born.

First, students designed a special container for paper waste. There were many difficulties, including long delays with assembly, problems with finding a place for installation and subsequent failure with the storage location. Still, paper collection became rather popular. Clear Action no longer needed an advertisement: Students would come up every day with piles of paper, while others would come to offer their help.

Thus, after a long discussion with the Institute’s administration, it was decided to build a 15,000-gallon cabin for the collection and storage of paper on campus. Specially designed with attention to detail, the cabin was ready by the end of this academic year.

“I can’t say it was very difficult to do this. Of course, we had some minor problems, but we were ready for them; other students and even workers from a construction site nearby were glad to help us,” says Anton.

Now this collection center works day and night, and everyone can leave paper in its special window. Regularly, workers come and pack the collected paper accurately. When the volume of paper becomes large enough, a truck moves it to one of the recycling centers nearby.

One ton of wastepaper saves 10 trees. There are around 3,000 students at MIPT and several offices, so around 22 pounds of paper are spent each year. This means that one year of recycling paper on MIPT campus will save about 300,000 trees.

“By the way, there were some fun moments. Once, a girl asked me to let her look through the tossed paper, because she thought she threw her passport in with it as well. Or when we were helping a local publishing office and, while we were moving packs of paper, I found an old envelope with 10 dollars in it. That was a bit strange, but we gave it back to the office,” the MIPT student says.

By now, Clear Action has sent off about 10 tons of paper to be recycled.

In the near future, Clear Action plans to buy a press for plastic and install special containers for plastic bottles around the city of Dolgoprudny, where MIPT is located. Some of these containers have already been placed on the campus.

“We are discussing this with the administration of the city. Our project is not just ecologically friendly, but it also could bring in income. So, we already have some companies ready to cooperate,” says Anton. According to calculations, it will cost around 1.1 million rubles ($34,000) per 100 000 citizens.

Click to enlarge the image 'Clear Action' of the MIPT

By their plan, people will just throw plastic bottles into containers next to ordinary waste baskets, where, once a week, a collector will come by and take the recycled plastics to the press. After this, pressed plastic will go to one of the recycling centers in Moscow. Clear Action is planning to enlarge its territory of collection and acquire a special recycling machine. It will simplify the entire process.

In addition, to ensure that the system continues to work even if the founders move away, the plan is to grow into a stable project with professional workers and cleaners, rather than volunteers or students who can suddenly give up on their duties.

“It’s not as difficult as it seems. In a number of cities—for example, in Kharkov [Ukraine] where I am from—this practice is used successfully,” says Anton.

Yet this project is not just about ecology. One of its co-founders started researching the bacteria contained in wastepaper. In addition, Anton himself is also working on another project named "Emission,"  based on the works of Nobel Prize winner Luc Montagnier and promising a breakthrough in agriculture and medicine.

Anton is going to continue the Clear Action campaign, even after graduating from the Institute: “We will work for it as long as we are here. And even if we would move away, the project would be settled enough to continue working without us.”

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High-speed rail

Russian revolution: is the Moscow-Kazan high-speed rail project on track?

The new 700km-long moscow-kazan rail line will be the only network in russia that can handle train speeds in excess of 400km/h. julian turner gets the inside track on the project’s viability and the future of high-speed rail in the country from frost & sullivan consulting analyst ivan kondratenko.

hink of Russia and rail travel and the first thing that comes to mind is likely to be the Trans-Siberian Railway, that epic, romantic journey of more than 9,000km from Moscow through the Ural Mountains, and on to the port city of Vladivostok in the frozen far east of the country.

Beloved by adventurers for over a century, the Trans-Siberian network was for decades the world’s longest railway line, until that honour went to the Yiwu-Madrid Railway upon its completion in 2014.

Now, the next major station in the evolution of Russia’s rail system has been reached in the shape of the new Moscow-Kazan high-speed line.

At more than 700km, the route is the first phase of the Russian section of a high-speed rail network between Europe and Asia that aims to improve cargo transportation between Beijing and Moscow, as well as mobility, interconnection and economic growth in the regions of Russia.

“The idea behind the construction of the Moscow-Kazan high-speed rail line was announced nearly ten years ago, in 2009,” says Ivan Kondratenko, consulting analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “Back then it was justified by improving the innovation of the industry and increasing the mobility of population alongside the rail route of about 15 million citizens by creating large agglomerations.

“The initial plan was to have the line extended to Yekaterinburg by 2030 with the ultimate goal to complete the 7,000km-long line connecting Moscow and Beijing.

“Accumulated high-speed rail projects in Russia by 2030 account for 4,300km. However, the Russian economy and state budget are currently not in the best shape to handle large infrastructure projects, so such achievements remain debatable as no real actions and construction has taken place yet,” he says. “For Russian Railways to complete their projects, attracting foreign partners for financing and technology sharing is crucial.”

The high-speed line is set to reduce travel time between Moscow and Kazan from 14 hours to just over three hours

Vital stats: Chinese funding and projected passenger numbers 

Deterioration of Russian relations with the West and subsequent Western sanctions put paid to interest in the Moscow-Kazan project from European conglomerates such as Siemens and SNCF.

In April 2016, China Railway International Group stepped in and agreed to provide a loan of RUB400bn ($6.2bn) for the construction of the Moscow-Kazan rail line over a 20-year period.

“China has shown its interest in taking part in the project as part of the construction of the high-speed rail network between Moscow and Beijing,” says Kondratenko. “One of the main conditions from the Chinese side was to use their technology and equipment for construction. Due to underdeveloped local capability and lack of access to Western technologies, the Russian counterparts agreed to these conditions.”

The project is being developed by JSC High-Speed Rail Lines, a subsidiary of JSC Russian Railways, through a public-private partnership (PPP) and overall financing for the project is expected to be obtained through additional PPPs, as well as from national funds and private investors .

“The initial budget for the Moscow-Kazan section of the project was estimated at nearly RUB1tn in 2013,” says Kondratenko. “However as of 2018, with work still in the early planning stages, the estimated cost has increased to nearly RUB1.7tn (around $25bn), with RUB700bn of this likely to come in the form of a non-refundable subsidy from the Russian Government.”

The line is expected to serve around 10.5 million passengers in its initial year of operation, with passenger capacity estimated to reach 20 million a year by 2035, and 25 million a year by 2050. Russian Railways plans to operate 300m-long bullet trains on the route. The trains will have an operating speed of 360km/h and a maximum speed of 440km/h.

Kondratenko is somewhat sceptical about the line’s projected impact on mobility among Russia’s regional population.

“There will be a certain increase, but according to the Russian Railways, by 2030 the estimated number of passengers on the line should be 10 million annually, which is actually eight times higher than the current number of passengers,” he says.

“A lot of experts are sceptical about this figure – there is no reasonable justification for such an increase, as the level of incomes in Russian regions is not high enough to afford travel on high-speed trains.

“According to the authors of the project, the multiplication effect on GDP after completion of the project should be seven times higher than total costs of the project,” he adds. “Again, there are no concrete justifications of these numbers.”

Image: ra3rn / Shutterstock.com

Fast track: will the new Moscow-Kazan line be affordable? 

The issue of affordability for average Russians is a recurring theme and one of the reasons identified by Kondratenko as to why high-speed rail has historically failed to gain more traction in the country.

“There is an issue around the purchasing power of local citizens,” he confirms. “Tickets for high-speed rail are usually comparable with flight tickets; for example, for the full route from Moscow to Kazan it should be around $60, comparable with a flight ticket price.

“For people who can afford travel, it makes more sense to choose faster planes, and for people with limited financial resources, longer times on routes at usual non-high-speed trains are justified by lower ticket prices.

“However, current rail, road and plane routes are significantly more time consuming than the projected high-speed line, and the main advantage of the project is that it is set to reduce travel time between Moscow and Kazan from 14 hours to just over three hours.”

“The main reason for the lack of a developed high-speed rail network in Russia is the country's huge size,” Kondratenko adds. “The route to Kazan from Moscow alone would be 790km long from west to east – and this is not even half of the country.

“Also, the costs of development of such networks are too high to allow the railways to become profitable in decades, if profitable at all.”

Critics have argued that the introduction of some high-speed lines has resulted in more affordable long-distance and commuter services being delayed or cancelled. Is the feeling that high-speed rail in Russia benefits urban, moneyed elites at the expense of rural passengers justified?

“There are no real high-speed lines in Russia at the moment,” Kondratenko points out. “The current Moscow-Saint Petersburg route allows for travel at a maximum speed of 250km/h and there are still trains at more affordable prices on alternative routes.”

For Russian Railways to complete their projects, attracting foreign partners for financing and technology sharing is crucial

As of 2018, the estimated cost has increased to nearly RUB1.7TN

Engineering ambition: project timelines and next-generation bullet trains 

The new high-speed route will be built in twelve stages, with construction on the Moscow-Kazan section scheduled to start in 2018.

“The plan is to have the line to Kazan completed by 2024,” says Kondratenko. “Initially, it was anticipated to be completed by 2018 before the World Cup in Russia, but considering it is still in the early stages of development, the timeline might be revised again.”

“The line is projected to be used as a cargo route as well, and potentially if the wider project of the railway from Moscow to Beijing is built, it can increase convenience and decrease time of cargo transportation.”

Whether or not ordinary Russians are willing, or able, to get on-board with their country’s multi-billion dollar high-speed rail revolution remains to be seen.

Image: BestPhotoPlus / Shutterstock.com

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