Nora Spratt from Troop 1617 is passionate about the plight of the
North Atlantic Right Whale. She is so interested in this topic that
she is even a member of the Calvineers, a science based
extracurricular activity for students in grades 6-8 that focuses on
conserving this marine species through public education and outreach.
When she decided to earn her Silver Award she knew she wanted to
incorporate this passion and global issue into her award
project.
Through research of other Right Whale advocacy
groups and talking with people in the Calvineers, she discovered that
the most effective way to get her message out would be to design and
launch a website for the Calvineers, which would enable them to
effectively communicate with the public on a more global scale. She
worked with her Project Advisor, a professional website designer, to
construct a functional website that allows the group to continuously
publish updated information about the Right Whale’s plight and allows
for communication and interaction with the public. Nora ensured the
sustainability of her website by using a platform that was “easy to
use and intuitive so that it wouldn’t be difficult for others to
manage the site.” In addition, she created a manual on how to update
and maintain the site so that other Calvineer members can update
it.
So, how did Nora determine if her project was a
success? She tracked the interactions between the Calvineers and
outside users of the site as well as analyzed her websites' ability to
perform its goals. Through her project, Nora learned a lot about
website design, coding, and most importantly that the “North Atlantic
Right Whale’s endangerment does not have a single solution. The
solution will come from many different people with different
perspectives and opinions. The effort to save the North Atlantic Right
Whale is going to take compromises from a lot of different people and
needs to be realistic and fair for both the ocean environment and
economy to survive.”
Nora is most excited about the
number of interactions she’s had with her website and her advice to
others earning their Silver Award is: “try something new that you’ve
never done before or don’t have much experience with. This project was
a great opportunity to widen my skill set.”
Silver Award Girl Scout, Nora Spratt
29 Apr 2020
