On April 28th, 2018 Science Cheerleaders Sherry “ShamRock” Leetham and Kaitlin Vortherms joined the Girl Scouts of Central Texas for a day of science packed events. Here’s what Kaitlin had to say about the event.
In the morning, we participated in the “Science Of Cheerleading” event hosted at Courage Cheer and Dance United, where young cheerleaders had the opportunity to discover the scientific principles that allow them to form solid pyramids, tumble, and perform gravity defying stunts. Sherry and I led the young women in science cheers and encouraged them as they created and performed science cheers of their own. We also used the opportunity and their love of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to challenge the young women to think about how science plays a role in cheerleading, and their daily lives.
For the afternoon event, I traveled to the Girl Scouts of Central Texas headquarters to participate in their Think Like a Citizen Scientist Journey. Nationally, the Girl Scouts have added several new STEM badges and journeys to better reflect girls’ interests and to focus on 21st century skills. One of these included the “Think Like a Citizen Scientist” journey in collaboration with SciStarter, which allows girls to contribute to research being conducted by professional scientists. The Girl Scouts have the option to choose from a variety of citizen science projects and for the journey that took place during the afternoon event, the project of choice was the Ant Picnic. The Girl Scouts of Central Texas team and I led Girl Scouts of all ages from Daisies to Juniors in the journey of collecting data about the diet preferences of ants. This project proved to be a lot of fun as it introduced the girls to observation, prediction, and some new bug friends.
