By Kristin Yerkie, Camp Staff

The rain garden designed as part of Girl Scouts – NC Coastal Pines’ Citizen Science Series continues to take shape with the engineers at Grounded Engineering of Raleigh. Set to be unveiled during the Good Earth Adventures event at Camp Mary Atkinson (CMA) on April 26, the ten Girl Scouts participating in the design and construction process anxiously await to see their hard work come to fruition.

When asked about their experience with the project, the participants had many things to say:

“We get to make our designs as a group and it’s a very useful experience; educational as well. We have got to use a lot of different technologies that most people haven’t even seen or heard of. We used the 3D simulator and Kinect to try out different rain gardens for CMA. It was so cool!” ~ Abby, Girl Scout Senior

“Dirt and Tigger (a.k.a. the program staff) have made it so not only is it a fun learning experience for us to create this rain garden, but they have also given us the responsibility and treated us like adults in allowing us to create the rain garden with our own thoughts and ideas while guiding us along the way.” ~ Nicole, Girl Scout Ambassador

“All the technology we get to experience is really neat. I also love how hands-on it has been!” ~ Alyssa, Girl Scout Senior

“We were able to mess with technology and the Kinnect was kind of like something you would see in movies. We also got to use augers to take soil samples from CMA, and see a rain simulator. These are the types of things that you get out of an agricultural experience like Citizen Science with really cool people!” ~ Janelle, Girl Scout Ambassador

How awesome is that?  Thanks to support from Duke Energy Foundation, Girl Scouting is able to provide this opportunity for girls to become savvy, innovative, aspiring science and engineering leaders.

Girl Scouts – NC Coastal Pines strives to provide opportunities for girls that enhances exposure and deepens engagement in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics – or STEM.

Interested in careers which focus on science or technology? Watch our Inner-views podcast series focuses on North Carolina women in STEM.

Tell us what you love about girls and STEM?