Some of the badges earned include: Cooking, Bible Study,
Indoor Sports, Astronomy, Friend to Animals, and Service to Others.
Badges often take about a month to earn, doing various activities and
assignments. “One of the activities we
did when learning about the Solar System was to calculate our weight on each
planet. We had to multiply our weight
[on earth] by another planet’s gravity factor.
It was very interesting,” says Joanna Estrada, Christian Education
Director.
Because students often visit a planetarium for a school
field trip, it was decided that Club 316 would do something different. As part of their astronomy badge, they took a
field trip to the Johnson Space Center in Houston. They were able to take
a tour around NASA and participate in a Feel of Space simulation to learn about
how astronauts live in a space environment.
There were modules to demonstrate actual training exercises astronauts
have to take as well as an astronaut gallery that had many different
spacesuits.
Several of the children also presented projects on a
given planet of the Solar System providing visuals and relevant information.
They presented at the Sunday morning worship service at The Salvation
Army.
Club 316 really takes a hands-on approach to
learning. In order to experience how the
blubber of arctic animals like penguins and seals can protect them from extreme
temperatures, they prepared a large bowl filled with water and ice – it was
freezing! All the children wore a food
service glove on their left hand and dipped it into a can of solid shortening;
then they took turns to place both hands into the water, with only the left
hand covered in shortening. The result
was very cold right hands! “The idea was
to discover how the shortening acted like insulation, keeping the left hand
warm just like blubber helps to keep arctic animals warm too,” says Joanna.
As part of their assignments for the Friend to Animal badge, the troop made a visit to PetSmart where they were given a fully detailed tour of the pets, how to care for them, and unique facts about them. Other activities to earn the badge included: giving a presentation on a specific animal, a group project caring for live hermit crabs and learning about various animals in the wild.
More recently, the children have been working on a
Service to Others badge. They visit nursing homes, help serve food, and
volunteer to help in other activities as well.
On Saturday, May 12, Club 316 went on a field trip
to the Houston Zoo where they were able to see and learn about many different
animals, even pet some in the petting zoo.
On Sunday, May 17, Club 316 troopers made a special presentation to
complete their Bible Study badge.
