The Summer Camp Girl Scouts

Summer camps present a splendid opportunity to acquaint campers with the wonderful out-of-doors and to open their eyes that they may discover for themselves the interesting things in the world about them. Often, however, it is difficult to get the proper attitude on the part of a large number of individuals who are thus living together. In some, the natural interest in woodlore is still unawakened while others have an unnatural or forced interest that border on sentimentality. The summer camp should try to foster a normal growth of interest in Nature that will become a part of the camper's life wherever she may be.

The Girl Scouts at Camp Bonnie Brae feel that they have discovered a game that helps to solve the problem of stimulating the proper attitude and promoting a natural growth of interest in this important subject. Everyone in camp from the youngest to the oldest, including councillors, was eligible to play the game, but of course no one was required to participate in it. The game consisted in accomplishing a certain number of quests and thereby advancing from one rank to a higher one. All who started to play the game were required to pledge not to give or receive help in attaining the quests. Then each person was given an orange disk to wear on the left sleeve that signified that she was a Seeker, the first rank in the game.

Each morning, at breakfast, a quest was announced such as: "Catch a mosquito and count his legs and wings," or "Measure the shadow cast by some object at two different times in the day. Tell the differences in direction and length." The answer to the quest was written out briefly by each Seeker and dropped into a box reserved for that purpose. The correct answer was announced at breakfast the following morning and a few interesting remarks made about the quest.

Sometimes different individuals reported their varying experiences. When a person had completed six quests she was required to establish a claim. This meant discovering some plant, insect, mammal's home, bird's nest or some other object about which she had known nothing, and finding all she could about it, first through observation and then by consulting a reference book or some person who could give her the necessary information. With this done, the girl was elevated to the rank of Finder and her new badge showed the head and antennae of a fire fly.

By: davidbunch

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