Agent of Change Junior Journey for Girl Scout Juniors

The Junior Girl Scout Agent of Change Journey is part of the It’s Your World – Change It! Series. The It’s Your World – Change It! Series includes the Daisy Journey Welcome to the Daisy Flower Garden and the Brownie Journey Brownie Quest. It also extends to the Cadette Journey aMaze, the Seniors Journey GIRLtopia, and the Ambassador’s Journey Your Voice, Your World. While you do not need to complete each journey in the set, the journey concepts do build and go more in depth with each progressive level. The It’s Your World – Change It! journey series focuses on leadership skills and how to make a difference in the world.

The Agent of Change Junior Journey specifically focuses on exploring the talents of your girl scouts as well as important women in their family, community, and world. Your scouts will learn that not only do they have special leadership powers, but they can combine these powers to form an unstoppable team and community. The junior girl scouts will learn about the benefits of teamwork and how to use their own talents to change the world.

Key Concepts and Vocabulary

While your scouts explore the Agent of Change Junior Girl Scout Journey, there are a few key concepts and vocabulary that can be beneficial to explore. Through this journey, your scouts will discover themselves, learn about teams and leadership, and how they can impact their community and world.

What are the Goals of This Journey?

Each Girl Scout journey has key takeaways for the girls who complete it. The Agent of Change journey is no different. This journey has 6 main goals for the girls to explore and discover amazing possibilities. The first three goals focus on the Power of One award, the fourth goal is the main focus of the Power of Team award, and the final two goals are the focus of the Power of Community award.

1) Your girls will begin to discover their own strengths, or “powers,” in their everyday life.

2) Your girls will explore the strengths of women in their past and present, including heroines, community members, and family members.

3) Juniors will connect their own strengths to the values in the Girl Scout Law.

4) Juniors uncover different ways they can combine their powers to form an unstoppable team who can accomplish anything.

5) Your girls learn about value resources in their community and how communities work together.

6) Your girls will take action to benefit their community using their individual powers, team powers, and community powers.

What is Power?

The Girl Scout Agent of Change Journey defines power as the way you act in everyday amazing ways. These are often skills that you use often or love about yourself that you can share with others.

It is important to help the girls to see that they have strengths that they can use to help others. These strengths are their power. When they use their power to help out in everyday situations, they can do amazing things even when it’s just them. They can also combine their strengths with others to inspire even more change for better.

What is Moxie?

Moxie refers to the energy, pep, courage, determination, know-how, and expertise of a person or team of people. Sometimes these traits are looked at individually and other times they are all used together to describe a person’s moxie.

Many leaders have moxie. Not only do they bring a lot of energy to their work, they are able to motivate others through their pep talks. Leaders also are courageous enough to want to bring about change and determined enough to make it happen. They have the know-how and expertise, either individually or collectively with those they motivate, to push for positive change for their community and world.

What Makes a Leader?

It’s important to note that a leader can be anyone, from any place in the world, at any age. There are no physical requirements to be a leader. Instead, leaders embody special characteristics that focus on helping others. They care about an action enough to make a difference. They have confidence in themselves to make the action come to fruition. Leaders inspire others and appreciate working with others, while inspiring them to feel amazing about the work they are doing. Leaders strive for success of the entire group by listening to others and taking their advice.

Other Key Vocabulary

While Power, Moxie and Leader are the main vocabulary for the Agent of Change Junior journey, there are a few additional words that can help the scouts while learning on this journey.

Girl Scout Junior Journey Books and Materials

For each Girl Scout journey, leaders have the option to purchase two books: a leader’s guide for the specific journey and a girl’s handbook for the journey. We have found that purchasing one leader’s guide and one girl’s handbook is usually enough for our troop. Then we share the girl’s handbook throughout the meeting. On the other hand, many troops prefer for each scout to have their own journey handbook. Depending on your available funds or parent’s willingness to pay for materials, your troop can decide the best way to use their funds.

However, leaders also have the ability to access the journeys and badges in the Girl Scout Volunteer Toolkit, which is an amazing resource for leaders to access the material for free. Buying handbooks, badge guides, journey books, and badges can be very costly, so the Volunteer Toolkit is a great free resource. You’ll also want the Agent of Change Journey Award Set.

Other materials that you will want for this journey include

Girl Scout Law Flower Board – large sheets of paper

5 large sheets of paper – 3 for the vocabulary activity and 1 for leader brainstorm and 1 for Take Action brainstorm

Power Log for each scout or page 15

Sheet of paper for I’m Being Framed or Page 13 and Power of Team Comic or Comic Strip and Creating Take Action Plan

Trading Card Template or page 23

Materials to make an obstacle course (we mostly used large items in the room)

Blindfold for obstacle course

3 Notecards per scout labeled True, False, and Wish

What are the Girl Scout Junior Agent of Change Journey Requirements?

To earn the Agent of Change Girl Scout Junior Journey, the girls will need to earn three different awards. The Agent of Change Junior journey requirements can be met over a few different meetings or in just one day. We will present both methods below for leaders to choose the best way to meet the Girl Scout Junior Agent of Change journey requirements for their troop.

While these awards do progress and build upon one another, you do not have to complete them in order. Yet, for our troop, we found earning the Power of One award before the Power of Team award and finally the Power of Community award worked well. As we progressed throughout the journey, we often circled back to the other awards as well.

Power of One Award Requirements

To earn the Power of One award, the scouts will work to discover their own strengths, or individual “powers,” by keeping track of their daily activities throughout a day. This Power Log will help the girls to highlight their individual strengths and places throughout their day where they helped others or made a difference.

Then they will research and learn about other powerful women throughout history, which may include heroines, people from their community, or family members. These women are important because they made a difference by working with others.

Both of these activities will allow the girls to see the traits in the Girl Scout Law used in a variety of ways. Not only will the scouts begin to document how they use the Girl Scout Law in their lives, but they will search for ways that their heroines embody the Girl Scout Law.

Power of One Award Activities

Opening Activity – 15 minutes: Create a Girl Scout Law flower board. Each girl can write down their name under the line from the Girl Scout Law where they want to focus on growing this year.

Team Vocabulary Activity – 15 minutes: Introduce the terms power, moxie and leaders. Write down Power, Moxie, and Leader on three different large sheets of paper. Allow the girls to brainstorm what these words mean to them. Then discuss the words as a group. Great pages in the Girl’s Agent of Change handbook include pages 6, 7, 11, 25, 28, 34.

Power Log – 15 minutes: Ask each girl to complete a power log detailing their day from yesterday. Use page 15 from the Girl’s Agent of Change handbook or create your own. Each girl should record their daily activities, especially where they made a difference for others. This can include playing with a sibling, helping with a chore at home, making sure they were ready for the day, doing something they didn’t want to but someone else wanted them to, etc. Pairs well with Junior Staying Fit Badge

I’m Being Framed – 20 minutes: Have the girls create a collage showcasing all their powers, strengths or skills that they can use to make a difference in the world. The girls can draw, write, paste words and photos cut from magazines, or even bring in their own photos. Use page 13 in the Girl’s Agent of Change handbook. Be sure to provide some time to share.. Pairs well with Junior Digital Photography Badge, Junior Entertainment Technology Badge, Junior Scribe Badge

Make Herstory Trading Cards – 30 minutes: Share the Herstory short biographies on page 17 – 19 of the Girl’s Agent of Change handbook. Then share the Dream Team trading cards on pages 20 -22 of the Girl’s Agent of Change handbook. Next, allow the girls to pick a heroine who inspires them. They can pick a family member, community member, famous person in their world, etc. Then allow them time to create their trading card. Use page 23 of the Girl’s Agent of Change handbook for a template or example. Be sure to provide some time for sharing, you can schedule that now or at the ceremony to present the award. Pairs well with Junior Scribe Badge

Total Time: 1 hour and 35 minutes

To Save Time on the Power of One Award

If you are trying to complete the Agent of Change Junior Journey in one day, you may consider modifying this plan a little. You could provide each scout the Power Log to complete prior to the meeting. This way they can complete the power log before coming to the journey in a day.

You could also ask each family to choose one woman who inspires their scout. Each scout could then come to the journey in a day with a book, handwriting information, or printed information about their heroine and how she is a leader.

Power of Team Award Requirements

When earning the Power of Team award, the scouts will explore how they can use their individual powers with others to create an unstoppable team. The girls will begin to connect power, leadership and teamwork to the traits of the Girl Scout Law. To earn this award, the scouts learn about finding take action projects, working together to take action, and helping their community.

Power of Team Award Activities

Opening Activity – 15 minutes: What makes a great leader brainstorm. Using a piece of large paper, have the girls brainstorm all the different traits that a leader has. Use page 34 in the Girl’s Agent of Change handbook for a starting point.

Blind Obstacle Course – 20 minutes: Allow the girls 5 minutes to work together to create an obstacle course. Then walked through the obstacle course together, describing each section and how you move through the course. Next, challenge each girl to attempt the obstacle course wearing a blind fold while their girl scout sisters guide them through the course with their voices and gentle touch guidance. Pairs well with Junior Staying Fit Badge and Musician

Power of Team Comic – 30 minutes: Share the comic “SuperShelterMakers” on page 46 – 63 of the Girl’s Agent of Change handbook. Let the girls make this their own and take turns reading or acting out the story. Then provide each girl or team of girls a blank paper, or use our comic book template, to create their own supergirl comic-book story, script, or visual story to show taking action in their community. Provide time to share comics. Pairs well with Junior Musician Badge, Junior Entertainment Technology Badge, and Junior Scribe Badge

Play the Real Me Game – 15 minutes: Provide 3 notecards to each girl. The 3 notecards are labeled True, False, Wish. The girls will write one truth about themselves on the True card, one false piece of information about them on the False card, and one wish they have on the Wish card. Then allow the girls to take turns sharing their cards and see if their friends can guess if the statement they share is their Truth, False, or Wish statement. How well do the girls know each other?

Total Time: 1 hour and 20 minutes

To Save Time on the Power of Team Award

When trying to complete the Agent of Change Junior Girl Scout journey in a day, you may choose to shorten this part of the meeting. The opening activity is not required and could be eliminated. You could also skip the Real Me game, thus saving yourself 30 minutes.

Power of Community Award Requirements

The Power of Community award requirements focus on the take action project. The scouts will decide on an issue in their community that they care about changing and will help their community. Throughout this project, they will need to learn to work as a team. Thus, the scouts will learn about consensus and majority votes. The girls will then need to pick a project, make a plan, reach out to members of their community, invite others to join, and carry out their plan. The final step is the reflect and celebrate the troop’s accomplishments.

Power of Community Award Activities

Opening Activity – 15 minutes: Brainstorm a variety of issues within the community.

What is Consensus – 10 minutes: Take a few minutes to discuss how people in our community reach a consensus. Discuss voting, Fist to Five (see page 37), or other ways to come to a group decision. Then look at your list of issues within the community and decide as a group which issue your troop would like to focus on, practicing building a consensus together. Pairs well with Junior Musician Badge

Make a Take Action Plan – 30 minutes or more: Give your scouts time to make a plan for their take action project. This might involve talking to other people, gathering more information, deciding what needs to be created. Write down each step to accomplish your take action project. Some projects may be able to be completed today, others might need to take place another day.

Carry out your Take Action Project – 1 hour or more: Actually make your Take Action Project a reality. Gather friends and family to complete the girls’ Take Action Project. Pairs well with the Junior Digital Photographer Badge and Junior Scribe Badge

Total Time: 1 hour and 55 minutes (or longer, depending on your Take Action Project)

To Save Time on the Power of Community Award

Ask the scouts to brainstorm community issues at a prior meeting and decide on a Take Action Project. This will let you begin the plan prior to putting it into place.

Another option is to plan your Take Action Project for another day. Complete the bulk of the journey in one day and then tackle the Take Action Project a little at each of your next meetings, with a final culmination of a Take Action Project in a month or two.

Take Action Project Ideas

Deciding on a Take Action Project can be tricky for the girl scouts. Usually by Junior Girl Scout year, the scouts have a better idea of what a Take Action Project is and they have participated in a few. However, you may need some ideas for new projects to try. Remember, a Take Action Project is not a community service project, but a project that is supposed to continue giving back to the community for years. Pairs well with Junior Digital Photography Badge and Junior Scribe Badge

For these take action projects below, we focused on helping others to discover their own individual powers for most of the examples, but did include a few more hands on or physical projects for scouts who need more doing and less planning.

1) Power of One Messages or Theme Days for School

2) Stop Bullying Campaign at School

3) Meet New Friends Theme Days for Lunch or Recess at School

4) Building Buddy Benches for the School or local park

5) Week or Month of Announcement Statements to Help Others Discover their Powers

6) Building Butterfly Gardens

7) Building Bat Houses to help with the endangered bats in the area

8) Beautifying their School with a Rock Garden

9) Creating a Community Garden at their School or Community

10) Create an Outdoor Classroom or Lunch Space at their School

Celebration for the Agent of Change Junior Journey

While Girl Scout journeys are pretty open, they usually include ceremonies or celebrations throughout the journey. Your troop can decide how they want to celebrate their progress and completion of the journey. Some troops love to celebrate after earning each award, while others would rather have one big celebration after the completion of the entire journey. The choice is really up to your troop and your time restraints.

Same goes for the journey award badges. You can hand these out to the girls as they complete each step or have one ceremony where you hand out all three badges at the same time. Our girls love the instant recognition; however, we find that more badges are lost this way or never end up on their vests. So we have usually opted for certificates to show the progress after each step and presentation of badges at the end of the journey.

The most important part is to allow your girls the opportunity to plan the celebrations throughout the journey or the celebration at the end of the journey. By allowing the girls to plan the celebrations, they will take more ownership and enjoy them even more.

Girl Scout Junior Badges That Pair with Agent of Change Junior Journey

While you explore a Girl Scout Journey, there are badges that often pair well with each journey. Sometimes these badges are easier to pair than other times. We find it most helpful to pair badges when we have a month or two to complete a journey. When we are trying to complete a journey in a day, this is often much more difficult. However, our plan does help to meet at least a few requirements of the badges which Girl Scouts suggest pair best with this journey.

Junior Digital Photographer Badge

The girls will need to learn how to take photos from an expert. In today’s world, this can be done in person, via a zoom meeting, or even at a studio. We did not pair this with the journey, but instead held this prior to beginning this journey.

Next, the girls will need to take tons of photos. This is something they can do on their own or throughout the journey. Let each scout take pictures of the activities throughout the process. This is especially important when they are working on the Take Action Project for the reflection and celebration. It’s never easy to go back and get pictures after the fact.

Afterwards, they will need to edit some pictures. Our girls tied this to I’m Being Framed. They took pictures of each other for the center of their poster. Then they practiced editing the pictures to use in their I’m Being Framed.

The fourth step is a make a digital photo project. This is perfect for any Take Action Project as you will want to highlight and celebrate the work of your girls. What better way than to include photos in the celebration. This will also cover the final step to share your photos, since you will be sharing them at the celebration!

Staying Fit Junior Badge

This badge asks the girls to start moving. The blind obstacle course can be a great time to focus on the staying fit badge depending on how the junior girl scouts design their obstacle course. You could always start or end the obstacle course with some movement too.

The next step asks the scouts to learn more about the foods that they eat. Step four asks the scouts to learn the truth about health. We did not pair these with the Agent of Change journey, but instead did this at a separate meeting. However, you could easily add these in if you choose to have a snack during the journey meeting.

Step three focuses on knowing how to stress less. This can pair well with the Power of One as we keep our Power Log throughout the day or even the blind obstacle course because they girls may feel stress about being blind folded. We can all share ways to help lessen our stress, the girls could journal about their feelings before and after completing the course or even adding in some yoga to the beginning, middle, or end of the course.

Finally, the last step involves helping your family stay fit. This would be an assignment that each scout does at home over the course of the next few weeks.

Junior Girl Scout Musician Badge

The first and second step look at exploring how music is made and music from around the world. And of course, music makes a nice compliment to any Girl Scout journey. Listening to and moving to music can pair with any opening or closing activity. It could also pair with the blind obstacle course.

Next, the scouts should check out the music in their life. Taking a music poll would work really well while the girls are learning about consensus. Let each girl share a favorite song, play the music, and then have a vote on the music we love as a troop.

In step four, the scouts are supposed to make their own music and step 5 asks them to perform it. If you ask the girls to include a song in their Power of Team comic and allow them time to share their comics, you could meet both of these steps for Musician.

Entertainment Technology Junior Badge

The entertainment technology badge begins with animating your artwork. You could ask your girls to turn their I’m Being Framed or Power of Team Comic into animated artwork such as a flipbook or thaumatrope.

Step two asks the girls to dig into video game development, while step 3 looks at the science of amusement park rides. We did not complete this at this meeting, but instead planned a different time to explore this option. However, you could try using MIT’s Scratch or Carnegie Mellon’s Alice to create the Power of Team comics as a video game. Step 3 definitely fits better with the mechanical engineering bages.

Step 4 asks the girls to create their own special effects. This can be extra fun to use with if you have the girls taking photographs throughout the journey. They can play around with a blue or green screen with their photos or even try being a make up artist.

The last step focuses on surfing a sound wave. You could allow the girls to create their own ringtone to use with their Power of Team comic presentation or their I’m Being Framed sharing.

Girl Scout Junior Scribe Badge

This badge beings by asking the girls to write a poem, where step 3 asks them to share who they are. We found that I’m being framed was a great place to ask the girls to turn their representation into a poem, while sharing who they are.

Next, the girls create a short story, which works well with their Power of Team Comic.

Step 4 and 5 look at writing an article and essay. These are great to pair with the Take Action Project or Herstory Trading Cards. The Herstory trading cards would work best as an article as these are facts about someone else. Once the girls complete their Take Action Project, they can share it with others by writing an essay to highlight their accomplishments.

How to Complete the Girl Scout Junior Agent of Change Journey in a Day

Below we will include our Junior Girl Scout Agenda for the Agent of Change Journey in a Day. We found that a Saturday or Sunday morning through lunch or lunch and the afternoon worked best for a journey in a day. If your girls can handle a full day of Girl Scouts, you may plan to start early in the morning and continue through the afternoon to include the entire Take Action Project or additional badge work. We asked the scouts to complete their Power Log prior to our meeting and bring in information about a woman who inspires them.

We’d Love to Connect with You

We hope you loved our Agent of Change plans as much as our girls and the best part, the troop was excited to tackle another Junior Girl Scout Journey! They had so much fun that we planned a few more journey in a day agendas for our troop. Check out the Junior Girl Scout aMUSE Journey and Outdoor Junior Girl Scout Journey for more ideas.

Leave a comment below and let us know if you’ve tried the Agent of Change Junior journey. What worked well for you? What would you have tried differently? Did your girls love the journey as much as ours? And if you are looking for more Girl Scout leader tips, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter below.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.