Outreach Team

Camessia Johnson, Assoc. AIA; Tara Labosky, AIA; Marisa Nemcik, Assoc. AIA; Melissa Rodriguez, Assoc AIA; Jillian Storms, AIA; and Anthony Consoli, AIA

Overview of Event

Location: Girl Scouts of Central Maryland:
Date: Saturday, November 14, 2015
Time: 10:00‐5:00 pm
Grade Levels: 1st ‐12th

Six volunteers covered this well organized event to introduce girl scouts to a wide range of STEAM academic/career paths. About 100 students and forty parents attended. We were at one of the fifteen activity tables on display. We also provided a workshop for nineteen students. Marisa and Jillian later served on a career panel where students could learn more and ask questions.

The FAR Exhibit included hexagonal building blocks design by Brown Craig Turner, mini‐Lincoln Logs, Historic Home Style puzzles, drawing tools and templates for students to draw with, and architectural pop‐up books. Three boards created by Design Collective illustrated the architectural process using the Maryland Science Center project.

We had nineteen elementary and middle school student attendees who viewed the Powerpoint, traced geometry in Louis Kahn’s Exeter Library, participated in structural forces charades, and then tried to build the highest spaghetti towers.

Lessons Learned

•  The scouts in attendance were very attentive and motivated to learn.
• Candy and puzzles prizes were a good motivator to encourage students to try solving the puzzles or make the tallest spaghetti towers.
• It would have helped for us to have more activity table space for students to take advantage of all the options we offered.
• Interactive exhibits & activities work best for these events.
• The Powerpoint was very effective and participants especially enjoyed the structural forces charades.
• We should have allowed more time for the spaghetti tower and have been clearer about the need for the tower to support a marshmallow at the top.
• The Corbu glasses were a fun idea for the volunteers at the activity table.
• We should have a FAR Architecture T-shirt for volunteers, perhaps with the charade graphics.