On Wednesday, 18 November 2009, girls from Troops 150, 955 and 487 met at Ames City Hall to lean about what it means to be a citizen and earn their Model Citizen badge. The event was the brainchild of Girl Scout troop leader Melissa Murray, and presenters included Matthew Goodman from the Ames City Council, Beth Wessel-Kroeschell from the Iowa state legislature, and Greta Anderson, a political activist.
The girls learned what it means to be a good citizen (both the rights and responsibilities), how laws get made at different levels of government, and how a citizen can voice their support or disapproval of issues at the local, state and federal level.
The girls were asked to come up with a proposed law they would apply to a new colony on the moon. The first suggestion was to make a rule that you can't jump higher than 100', so everyone put in their two cents about why this would be (or wouldn't be) a good law. We asked the girls to reach some kind of consensus about why this law should be passed, who would enforce it, what would the consequences be, and what might t cost to enforce the law. After all that discussion we took a vote, and lo and behold, it was a tie, so he girls experienced first hand how difficult it is to get a group of people to agree on something!
