Inside Government : Girl Scout Junior Badge

Steps:
1.  Decide what being an active citizen means to you
2.  Go inside government
3.  Look into laws
4.  Report on the issues
5.  Get involved in government


We broke this badge up into two meetings.  Our meetings are one hour long with no snack.

Our first meeting we talked about laws and what laws affected them on their way to the meeting.  Did they have to drive at a certain speed?  Were there traffic lights or stop signs that they had to obey?  We then talked a little about some of the wacky laws that are on the books.  There are a few listed in the Girl Scout Junior Manual.  I did a little research online and found a few more silly laws to share with the girls.

We then told the girls that we would be getting a tour of city hall by our mayor.  We asked the girls to come up with a question for the mayor.  We had them write the question on a note card and went through them so we did not have a duplicate question.  We collected the cards so we would have them for our tour.

During our tour we were going to have a mock government meeting.  The girls were divided into two groups and had to come up with valid points for their topic.  The topic was:  Homework vs. No Homework.  We had the girls write down their points on a card and collected them for their presentation in front of the mayor.


Meeting #2

We went on a tour of our town's city hall with the Mayor as our tour guide.  He gave the girls some information on what the day to day is like for our village, including the duties of a Mayor.  The tour of our village hall included safety features that were added (bullet proof glass, emergency button in the board room, etc.).  The Mayor had fascinating information on the population of our town, the large corporations that are based here and some of the odd laws that the town had on the books.  The girls were able to ask the Mayor the question that they prepared at the last meeting.  The Mayor had us run a mock government meeting.  Our topic was extending the school year to all year school.  He had half of the girls vote for all round school while the other half voted against.  The town clerk (one of our girls) counted the votes and said it was a tie.  The Village Attorney (one of our girls) called for the Mayor (one of our girls) to make a decision.   The Mayor told the acting Mayor how to make her decision by talking about both sides and then making the decision.  He also said that when making these decisions you have your friends (the people that you made happy with your decision) and the people that are unhappy with your decision.

I think it turned out to be a very informative tour.  Glad we did it.