Scouting out the natural-science museum

Friends Heidi Tamm and Zoe Kass (from left), both Condit Elementary School graduates, earned Girl Scout badges offered by the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Heidi will attend Saint Thomas’ Episcopal, and Zoe will attend Lanier Middle School.

This spring, we went to Bryan, Texas, to look for fossils. Compared to what most people would do on a weekend, it was pretty unusual. We were completing our last Houston Museum of Natural Science Girl Scout badge. In fact, we became the first girls to finish the complete set of Girl Scout museum badges and week-long camp for science.

Chemistry, paleontology, archaeology, biology, astronomy, geology, fossil dig and careers in science were Girl Scout-badge options the museum offered. All are designed to teach girls like us about science careers and opportunities.

We started these badges in August 2013, when we had just become Junior Girl Scouts. Even though that was long ago, the museum released new badges, and having enjoyed our last experience, we were excited to learn, have fun, and explore the museum once again.

But what did we do to earn these badges? For many, we went to the corresponding exhibit in the museum. For the geology badge, we went to the Gem Hall. We also got to go behind the scenes! We went to the room where the butterflies were in their chrysalises and the room where they kept all of the bugs.

We have had fun exploring the museum. We have gone to the Cockrell Butterfly Center, Wortham Giant Screen Theatre and Burke Baker Planetarium. All of these places helped us gather further knowledge about each badge’s topic.

Houston Museum of Natural Science’s summer camps and classes have motivated us to explore science even more. The camps have also taught us many things we can’t learn at school.

There are Boy Scout badges too. They have robotics, genealogy and a lot of other cool things. Girl Scout Brownies get their own Brownie Trail science badges too. Even if you aren’t a scout, the museum has many other summer camps to offer. We have enjoyed earning Girl Scout badges at the museum and can’t wait to come back as Cadettes!           

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