Leader 2 Leader
Advice from Leaders Just Like You!

'Math is so important to the future of girls... Are there ways leaders can introduce math into activities?'
—Linda from Kentucky

Math Is Everywhere

Math is a part of almost everything we do in Girl Scouting. Goal setting and budgeting for money-earning involve math. Planning activities and camp-outs involve recipes, supplies and shopping lists. Crafts, such as origami or set design involve math (shape, patterns, measuring, and dimensions). Music and singing are math-based (rhythm, beat and repetition). In a balanced program girls will learn and use math.

—Shelley Klein, Santa Maria, Calif.

Material Things

A fun way to see math in action is through quilting. Girls of all ages can make quilts as part of recognition or service projects. Girls use math skills when measuring pieces, counting how many squares are needed, calculating fabric yardage to purchase, determining the size pieces needed to make a finished block, and measuring borders. Younger girls can learn how to calculate seam allowances and how they affect the finished size. Older girls can build a spreadsheet to determine how many pieces, and the yardage of each color they will need.

—Deb Graves, Girl Scouts of Freedom Valley,
Blue Bell, Pa.

Practicum

How much will it cost to take our troop on a science museum overnight? How many boxes of cookies will each girl need to sell to cover the cost? How much money should we spend on the items to stuff each stocking for a service project, and how many stockings can we afford to stuff?

In working through the Ms. President patch last year, we discussed the percentage of the population who are women, and that there has never yet been a woman President. This year we're participating in the National Toy Challenge Competition, as part of our Junior Toymaker badge, we'll apply an engineering design process and include a cost analysis element.

—Meg Draeger, Miami Valley Tech Prep Consortium,
Sinclair Community College

Start At Any Age!

Daisy Girl Scouts can count, sort and make comparisons. They can experience an advanced math concept like "one-to-one correspondence" by giving each person a napkin at an event. Or, they can learn about patterns copying a pattern you have created by using beads of different sizes and colors, and then making up their own patterns. Brownie and Junior Girl Scouts love tan grams—a geometric puzzle with 7 pieces (5 triangles, 1 square, and 1 parallelogram) that can be arranged to create images. Start with shapes that have each piece outlined in the figure, and progress as far as your girls want to go. Girls can learn about the concepts of area and perimeter by comparing the size of the pieces and the lengths of the edges. Advance to pentaminoes (flat or 3-D pieces constructed with 5 squares) or tessellations (think M.C. Escher).

—Jane from La.

It's All in How You Present It

We had a math/science interest group for girls that met for several years. Even though my co-leader was a woman engineer, we NEVER used the words "math" or "science." We did fun activities like monitoring the blue bird houses at the local Audubon Society. We spent several weekends at MIT learning about stop motion photography, testing water quality of the Charles River and building electronic quiz boards. We emphasized the fun! The girls made the connection to science on their own, and later described the group as the "math group!"

—Heather Wilkinson Rojo, Girls Scouts of Swift Water Council,
Londonderry, N.H.

Family Math

Organize a Family Math Night using the Family Math program from EQUALS at Lawrence Hall of Science http://www.lawrencehallof science.org/equals/index.html, setting up a variety of stations with different math experiences available at each one. The activities are graded by difficulty and can be done with minimal supplies and tools. They are intended to be home-based math games and activities for families to do together and most are appropriate for troop activities.

—Mary Clare Murphy, Brownie Troop 284,
Madison, Wis.

Be Adventurous

Every activity we do in Girl Scouts involves math: the number of requirements for badges, the amount of troop dues, and the number of girls in attendance, even Safety-Wise requirements. The activities are the icing on the cake! Have girls find out how and why calendars were invented and then have them invent a new calendar or learn about a calendar from a different culture. Figure out how many pounds of caramel a Girl Scout Cookie recipe uses. The secret to math is having fun and then saying "Ah hah, there are many ways to solve a problem."

— Bobbie jo Boulay, Wells, Maine

Resources Galore

A leader might also consider meeting with a math teacher or someone from a community college or university who works with math to get some suggestions. A school or library will have computer software packages for games and learning, as well as ideas for websites to visit. A lot of fun ones exist, such as Roller Coaster Tycoon®, that actually incorporate math in fun ways. Tangrams, optical illusions and origami resources can be found online or at the library.

Resources Online:

• Family Math is a link to resources and programs, http://www.lhs.berkeley.edu/equals/FMnetwork.html
• Figure This! Math Challenges for Families has lots of ideas, http://www.figurethis.org/
• Girls Go Tech! A Girl Scout Math, Science and Technology initiative, http://www.girlsgotech.org/
• Money Smarts helps girls learn about finances, http://www.girlscouts.org/moneysmarts/
• National Academy of Virtual Math Manipulatives is an incredible library of interactive problem solving by grade level and topic, http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html
• National Toy Challenge for grades 5-8, http://www.toychallenge.com/
• PBS Kids: Cyberchase has great math games, including tangrams, http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/index.html

Adapted from LEADER, Spring 2006. © Girl Scouts of the United States of America.