Click here when done with the activities >

Junior STEM Career Exploration - GSOC Inspire

Complete the following steps to earn the Junior STEM Career Exploration Badge:

Materials Required: blank index cards or cut white cardstock, crayons/markers, pencils

1. What She Does: Watch the Junior Planet, World, or Story video on the GSOC Inspire site. Ask your Girl Scouts what careers they are interested in learning about to help make your choice on what path to take.  

Optional: You are more than welcome to watch more than one!

2. Learn About a STEM Career: Watch at least 2-3 videos about specific career women. Choose women to explore in depth from your video, or check out the Career Women Library. 

3. STEM Careers Activity: Window to the Future

• To do this activity, you will need blank index cards (no lines), or cut cardstock, pencils and crayons/markers for additional creativity. On one side of this card, you will draw a rectangle, leaving a little room around the edges. 

•  Introduce this as a “window into their future”. Ask Girl Scouts to think about what they see themselves doing in the future. What job would they have? Where are they? What else would they be doing? 

• This is a great connection point into taking the things we love and turning them into a career. Give an example, such as, you love dolphins, maybe you could be a marine biologist or zookeeper! You love playing Animal Crossing, maybe you could be a video game designer! Ask for some examples of turning what we love into a career. 

• Ask Girl Scouts to draw their future in the window. They can be as detailed as they would like. Go around and ask clarifying questions such as “what are you doing in your picture? Where are you living? Why is doing XYZ important to you?”. If Girl Scouts are having a hard time thinking, they do not have to pick a specific STEM career. They could pick something simple they would like to do in their future. We also did not define how far into the future we are going. Maybe it is going to College or traveling somewhere new. The goal of this activity is to open girls up to new ideas or career opportunities and introduce the idea that they can turn what they love into a career or even try new things! 

• Once all Girl Scouts have completed their drawing. Go around and have everyone share. 

• Thank everyone for opening up and sharing their dreams and futures! Say, it is always exciting to hear what you want to do, but how do we turn that into reality is the important part. How do we turn dreams into action? 

• Instruct Girl Scouts to turn over their card and draw one line down the center and one line on either side of that. On the far left column, write “my goal”, in the column to the left of that, write “after high school”, next to that “in high school”, and finally, “today”.

• Instruct Girl Scouts that in the “my goal” box, they will write what their goal is as an “I am” statement. For example, “I am a Doctor”. In the “after high school” box, write what you will do after high school to help set you up for that goal. In the “in high school box”, write something that will help you get closer to that goal that you could do in middle and high school. In “today”, what can you start doing today that will help set you up to reach your goal. (Try to leave it open ended and allow for creativity, examples are below to support!)

• Once they have completed their boxes, ask Girl Scouts to share with each other! (Running out of time, just share “today” and “my goal” boxes.)

4. Now What? Ask your Girl Scouts how they feel about that activity. What did they learn? Thank your Girl Scouts for their participation! Remind them that they can do anything they set their mind to! This is a great spot to provide motivation and support for their hopes and dreams. This activity was developed to show them they can start working towards their goals TODAY! They have a long way away from picking a career, but they always have the chance to follow their dreams and learn new things!

For more fun: You can borrow the GSOC Inspire Box that has props and accessories for different STEM Careers. You can host a fashion and interview show. Bring Girl Scouts up to the front and interview them using the questions they answered. Turn them into questions such as,  “What is your job? Where do you work? What do you wear for this job? What do you do everyday in this job? What can students learn today to help them prepare for this job?”. (This is optional!)

Take it Further: Pick some STEM topics your Girl Scouts were really interested in and find time to do a new STEM badge! Check out these Junior Badges connected to career exploration shown in the video!

Click here for a PDF Download of the Activity.