Amaze: A crash course
The Cadette leadership journey aMAZE is designed to teach the Girl Scouts how to navigate social relationships and societal pressures.
Earning the Journey awards
Every Girl Scout Journey has three sub-awards. Each of these have different criteria. Below are some ideas and suggestions.
Interact
- Meet up with another Cadette troop. Make friends.
- There are many programs that can set up pen-pals between people of different countries. Arrange for every girl in the troop to get a pen-pal. Make new friends.
- Set up a "secret psyche" within the troop. Pick names out of a hat. You are the secret psyche of the person whom you selected, and it is your job to make their life a little bit nicer, by leaving small gifts (set a limit of ten dollars to be spent over the projects entirety) or post-it notes with nice things written on them, etc. in their back pack or locker.
Diplomat (ideas for the take action project)
- Do a school-wide anti-bullying seminar
- Many schools have some form of a "peer mediator" group. If they do, encourage the girls to join it, if not, start one!
- Mentor a younger troop.
Peacemaker
- Give each girl a small notebook to be used as a literal tool-box. Have each one read a quote from her notebook that she particularly likes.
- Put up posters around your meeting-place, displaying and spreading aforementioned quotes.
- Write letters to various political officiates about creating world peace.
Corresponding Badges
aMAZE is an "It's Your World" journey. The corresponding badge categories are Digital Arts, Healthy Living, Performance, Science and Technology, and Storytelling. Respectively, the Cadette level badges in these categories are Digital Movie Maker, Eating for Beauty, Public Speaker, Science of Happiness, and Screenwriter.
Digital Movie Maker is a badge designed to teach Cadettes about the filming industry. Ideas include:
• Watch a T.V. show, taking notes on the different shots used and the placement of the props.
• Create a storyboard of your movie
• Do a documentary on one of your friends.
Public Speaker is a badge for learning how to give speeches and addresses in public. Ideas include:
Digital Movie Maker is a badge designed to teach Cadettes about the filming industry. Ideas include:
• Watch a T.V. show, taking notes on the different shots used and the placement of the props.
• Create a storyboard of your movie
• Do a documentary on one of your friends.
Public Speaker is a badge for learning how to give speeches and addresses in public. Ideas include:
- Write a speech for a side of an argument that you believe strongly in. Now write an equally passionate one for the opposition.
- Watch a politician giving a speech. Do they look convincing? Do they look like they care? Why?
- Deliver your piece in the mirror or for a friend. Do you look convincing?
- When talking to your friends, try and pay attention to when something you say makes them happy. Keep note of this, and use it to make your friends happy.
- Look at the "Signature Strengths" chart on page four. Using this, make a list of your signature strengths and what activities would you use these in. Do at least three of these activities.
- Keep a journal. After several weeks, reread it. Look for patterns. What makes you happy? Spend more time doing those activities. What makes you unhappy? Avoid doing things that trigger sadness.
- View several episodes of a popular, humorous T.V. show. What makes the jokes funny?
- Experiment with an unconventional pro-or antagonist. Switch their roles, perhaps, or let the bad guy win.
- Dream up several typical story plots--rags to riches, boy meets girl, the kind of story where the hero's best friend dies, the hero gets the love interest, and the bad guy looses. Now write a plot where none of that happens.