Badge Program larajla.

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The Enrichment Project
Field Trips: Sharing My Community
Steps
Exploring my community
1. Sharing my community.
You can share your community with photos and information on events and organizations.
Start a database, document or folder with information on the events that happen in your
community so you can share this information. Include the following:
Event name
Dates
Cost
Hosting organization
Location of organization
Contact information for organization
Frequency of event (yearly, anytime, etc.)
Photos available?
Links for more information
If you have additional ideas for your database such as age limitations, group size, etc.
include those as well.
2. Free all the time.
Create a listing of free eld trip opportunities in your area that may be arranged at any
time. Make sure organizations that have ofered free eld trips in the past did not do it for
a specic group or reason so that anyone may be ofered the opportunity. Find out if these
organizations are still operating. Share this list with your service unit, council or other
groups that would nd this information useful.
3. Special events.
Some eld trip events are special events. These may happen at parks, orchestras,
museums, clubs or businesses. Keep track of events that are special events and the
organization / individual in charge. Is it possible that these might be held again? Track
what you nd.
4. Scheduled events.
Some events need to be scheduled to make sure they have the minimum number of
participants, can be held at a certain venue, or have other requirements that need to be
met. Find events that need to be scheduled and share those. Make sure you note any
specic requirements, age limitations, etc.
5. Other events.
Find other events that do not t into the above categories. Determine if they can or should
be shared.
Field Trips:
Sharing My
Community
Each of us knows
our own community.
How often have you
wanted to do a eld
trip, but are unaware
of whats available?
By sharing your
unique community
with others, you can
provide experiences
that visiting troops
might miss.
Together, we can
provide opportuni-
ties for discovery
and exploration
for our youth and
ourselves. Instead of
sharing our stories,
were providing the
opportunity for
everyone to have
the experiences to
create their own.

Enrichment
Project
larajla.com
6. Photos.
Take photos of various sites in your community. Highlight those areas that are of interest
to tourists and locals. Rename your les so you can quickly identify your community sites.
Alternatively, you can search for images on the Web and create a hometown board on
Pinterest to share your images.
Birds eye view
7. Determine the area.
You may choose to share your community with other group leaders or a larger group.
Decide if your nal plan is to cover your city, your county, your state or your council.
Can you do this on your own or do you need to recruit help?
8. Sort.
You can sort your area by any of the information in Step 1. Decide if youll distribute your
information electronically, with printed materials or other means.
9. Printable only.
If you choose to share this only with printable materials (handouts and PDFs), create a
template you can share with others so you can combine collected community events into
a folder for reference. This will ensure that all shared information looks similar. Determine a
way you can notify others about your updates.
10. Private and online.
You may choose to set up an online resource about your community. This might be
anything from photos on Pinterest to documents on Google. Discuss this option with
others who are sharing their communities. Do you want anyone to have access or limit it
to those who request it?
11. Interactive site.
Create an interactive map of the area youre covering. Make each area clickable so that
it opens a page specically about an event, city or other smaller area. Provide
the information and photos youve collected in Steps 1-6. Include links for additional
information.
Beyond sharing
12. Programs individual.
List any programs available through the events you list and where you can acquire them.
For example, a museum might ofer a participation patch or cover the steps of a badge.
13. Programs clusters.
Find or create programs for specic sets of activities or locations. Make groups of them so
that the design matches, giving kids the opportunity to collect them all. You might want
to do all the camps in your council, the museums in your state, parks in your region, etc.
Brainstorm ways to honor kids who acquire all pieces of these badge sets.
For example, Indiana State Parks has a pin program where you can earn a pin at each of
the state parks. You have to participate in events, explore the park, etc. Earning all of the
pins would be an interesting project for a troop or group.

Enrichment
Project
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14. Programs group.
Ask your council / school / group to provide a program featuring the specic areas of your
area. This can coincide with an interactive map site (see Step 11). A multi-part patch can
highlight areas visited while completing activities, exploring what other areas have to ofer.
The supplement for this is listed below. It is a patch program from the Girl Scouts of
Northern Indiana-Michiana. It is no longer on their site, so I do not know if it can be earned.
It is provided as a sample only of what you might do.
Expand the experience
15. Create your own local event.
Create your own community event. Ofer it beyond your organization as a recruitment
event or service project.
16. Create your own wide event.
Create your own community event, ofering it to anyone within your organization. In
addition to your own event, provide information about other community oferings that
are similar that your participants might be interested in attending.
17. Social media.
Social media allows you to explore communities and create communities. Find out what
social media ofers and how you can utilize it to share your community. This might be
through photo sites like Flickr or Pinterest, sites like Facebook or even special sites set
up by your organization.
Supplements
05_CouncilQuilt_Patch.pdf
For reference only
Sites to Explore
www.ickr.com
www.facebook.com
www.pinterest.com
Check out larajlas Enrichment Project
to start your own adventure.