Girl Scout Bridging Awards - Bridge to Girl Scout Junior Award


Brownie | Junior | Cadette | Senior | Ambassador | Adult

                                                                             
Fly Up to Junior!

Get ready! Get excited! You are almost a Girl Scout Junior. What fun lies ahead?

When you fly up to Girl Scout Junior, you'll get to take part in cool new experiences, like going on an overnight at a science museum, working on a farm, attending a baseball game, visiting a wildlife preserve, making a robot, or trying new sports like archery. Now that you're older, little kids look up to you, so you may decide to do something for younger Girl Scouts—perhaps plan a Teddy Bear tea for Daisies!

As a Girl Scout Junior, you can choose to go on any (or all!) of three journeys: Agent of Change, Get Moving!, and aMUSE. On a journey, you and your Junior friends can team up to make a difference in the world. Every time you complete a journey, you'll earn three awards. And after you've finished one journey, you'll be able to earn your Girl Scout Bronze Award—one of Girl Scouting's highest awards.

Earning the Award
To earn the Bridge to Girl Scout Junior Award, complete two bridging steps. These steps will help you pass down something you learned to a younger Girl Scout and look forward to what's waiting for you at the next level.

Bridging Step One: Pass It On! Share your talents and skills by teaching younger Girl Scouts something you learned to do as a Brownie.

Here are a few ideas to get you started (you only have to do one to complete the step).

• Teach a group of Girl Scout Daisies a song, game, or craft, especially one you loved doing on your Brownie journey. Share with your Daisy sisters your favorite parts of being a Brownie. Explain all they have to look forward to when they become Brownies. Inspire your Daisy sisters to climb the ladder of leadership!

• Help the Daisies create and decorate small books (you can make these easily by stapling blank pages between two pieces of construction paper). Make sure each Daisy writes her name on the cover of her book! Pass the books around and write messages to the Daisies, telling them what makes them special, why you're glad they're your sister Girl Scouts, and what they can look forward to as Brownies.

• Invite Daisies to attend one of your meetings to find out what being a Brownie is all about. Maybe you can demonstrate a cool skill you learned on an outdoor adventure. Or show them photos of your trip to the aquarium. Or teach them what you learned about taking care of your bicycle. When you are done, tell the girls all about Girl Scout Juniors and why you are excited to "fly up." 

Bridging Step Two: Look Ahead! Find out What Girl Scout Juniors Do

The best way to find out what it really means to be a Girl Scout Junior is to talk to girls who already are Juniors. To complete this step, get together with your Junior friends and do one or more of the following activities (choose whatever sounds like the most fun to you and other Brownies!).

• Ask your Junior friends what activities they loved doing as Juniors and why. Maybe they can tell you stories about their favorite memories of working as a team—and maybe you and your Brownie friends can tell your own stories about what you loved doing as Brownies. Maybe your Junior friends can teach you a game or a special Girl Scout activity. If any of the girls were also Girl Scout Brownies, ask them how being a Junior was different from being a Brownie.

• Talk to one or more of the Girl Scout Juniors who earned her Girl Scout Bronze Award. Wow! That's a big accomplishment. How did she choose her project? Who was on her team? What did she learn? Ask what advice she would give to someone who wants to earn her Bronze Award. Does hearing about a Junior's experience inspire you to go for the Bronze, too?

Plan a Ceremony
Congratulations! You've earned your Bridge to Girl Scout Junior Award! Celebrate with a favorite ceremony you learned on your Brownie journey—or make up a new one. Then add your Bridging patch to your Junior sash or vest. Some girls receive their Brownie wings at this ceremony, too. For more ideas, visit Bridging Ceremonies.

If you go online, remember to sign the Girl Scout Internet Safety Pledge.

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Girl Scout Junior, grades 4-5

Explorations, Fun, and Best Friends Forever

Girl Scout Juniors earn badges and discover what girl power is all about through new activities and by learning to take charge of their own plans. They gain self-confidence as they explore the world in partnership with their troop/group leaders.

Journeys for Girl Scout Juniors

• Agent of Change
• Get Moving!
• aMUSE

Guide Books for Girl Scout Juniors

• Junior Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting

Uniforms and Books

Girl Scout Juniors can wear the Girl Scout Membership Pin, showing they belong to Girl Scouts of the USA, and the World Trefoil Pin, signifying their membership in a worldwide movement. Girls can purchase Girl Scout Junior uniforms with either a sash or vest to display their badges and other insignia. Books are available on the Girl Scout online shop. 

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It's Your World—Change It!
Introducing the First Series of Journeys

 

 

Agent of Change
Power. In this journey, there’s a whole spiral of it waiting for Girl Scout Juniors. The journey is filled with ceremonies and circles, real-life heroines, and special new characters, including the fashion-savvy spider named Dez. Along the way, girls learn how their own power combines into team power and then moves out to become community power (kind of like how Dez weaves her web from the inside out). The journey’s centerpiece is a comic story of girl heroines who will inspire the Juniors as they take action to improve their own community.

Journey Awards -
This Junior journey is filled with fun and friendship. From its start to its closing celebration, the girls will move from a deeper understanding of themselves to exploring how powerful they are as a team, to realizing the added strength they gain by reaching out in the wider community to take action with its members. Agent of Change offers girls a chance to earn three awards and record progress throughout the journey in their own ''Award Tracker.''

• To earn The Power of One Award, girls will discover and share the powerful story of a forgotten woman or girl from around the world who mobilized others and made a difference, discover all the ways their own strengths and powers help them create change in the world, and discover what the Girl Scout Law and true ''heroines'' have in common
• To earn The Power of Team Award, girls connect with their Girl Scout crew to create a ''super girl'' story in which the characters take one small situation they care about and strive for long-lasting community change. Girls will also make a team decision and write their team hopes for a Take Action Project that reaches into a community network to solve a problem together with community members
• To earn The Power of Community Award, girls take action on their plan, reach out, join others and get them involved, and start something that snowballs into a change in their world. Girls join in their Girl Scout Junior circle to reflect on what they accomplished and celebrate it.

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It's Your Planet—Love It!
Introducing the Summer 2009 Journeys

Get Moving!

• Juniors build their skills as leaders who Energize, Investigate, and Innovate.
• They earn these three prestigious new leadership awards as they explore their own energy, the energy in their places and spaces (buildings), and the energy of getting from here to there (transportation)
• Juniors have a new comic story, "Vamos Ya!" to inspire their action (walking school bus anyone?)
• Dez, the fashionista spider, is also back to add some wit to the journey as she tries to figure out life "off the grid." "How does this carbon footprint thing work?" she asks. "Do I get eight?"
• From their own paper-making experiment to making beads from newspapers and magazines to forming a "perpetual human motion machine," Juniors will find that GET MOVING! is crammed full of energizing stuff to make and do!

Journey Awards -
This journey offers Juniors a chance to earn three Girl Scout leadership awards—Energize, Investigate, and Innovate. The girls can choose to earn one, two, or all three. If they earn all three, they'll see how the awards join together to create an energizing effect on their vest or sash.

To earn the Energize Award, girls:

• Make an Energy Pledge to reduce their energy use in one or more ways
• Try at least two other Energize activities suggested along the journey
• Check out how other people are tackling energy issues

To earn the Investigate Award, girls connect with their Girl Scout crew to:

• Learn about energy use in their buildings
• Work with their families to make an energy improvement at home
• Investigate energy use in a community building and suggest ways to make it more energy-efficient

To earn the Innovate Award, girls:

• Identify an energy issue in the community, research it, create a plan, and carry it out, all the while reaching out to others to join in, too
• Share the news, reflect on what they accomplished, and celebrate it

 

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