Girl Scouts Badges Join the Digital Age

For nearly 100 years, girls of all ages throughout America have cultivated important life long skills by participating in the Girl Scouts. We are all familiar with their annual cookie sales and have seen their sashes adorned with badges showing that the girls have mastered a wide host of traditional skills like cooking, first aid and family care.

Starting this year the 3.2 million girls can earn new badges showing that they have mastered skills that could prove very useful in today’s violate economy and as they enter the workplace in the digital age. They have also updated some of the more traditional badges, scouts no longer earn a “Fashion, Fitness and Makeup” badge they now earn a “Science of Style” badge, instead of learning about complimentary colors and how to apply makeup they evaluate the nanotechnology of fabrics and the chemistry of sunscreens and other cosmetic products.

Girls also can help make headway into our industry; an industry that is all too often male dominated. They can take courses in digital photography, website design, digital movie making and younger girls can earn badges in “Computer Fun”- but don’t think they are learning how to Facebook or play “mindsweeper” they learn how to actually use the computer, by saving files, running spell check and becoming proficient in programs that are just as common as a coffee pot in today’s work place.

In an interview with NBC’s “Today Show” Alisha Niehaus, a program resources executive for the Girl Scouts USA, explained, “We want girls to become leaders in their on lives and in the world-these badges focus on giving girls fun with purpose, so they can go ahead and be leaders in the next century.”

In a world where the creators of “Angry Birds” and the founders of Facebook are millionaires a few times over these skills could prove to be extremely profitable for this and future generations of Girl Scouts.

-Jacob Conway