Today ’s Girl Scouts are doing more than earning badge and sell cookies : They ’re aid to save the environment . Scientific Americanreports that a novel Girl Scouts educational program bid GLEE ( Girls Learning Environment and Energy ) has been teaching Girl Scouts a range of energy conservation strategies with real results . Girl Scouts who participated in the program have successfully improve their energy - saving behaviors by as much as 49 pct .
In parliamentary procedure to measure the effectiveness of the programme , researchers atStanford Universityconducted astudyfollowing 30 Girl Scout troops in Northern California as they participated in two dissimilar GLEE programs . In the first , Girl pathfinder con style to save energy around the household ( by turning off lights , aim shorter showers , and so on ) , while the 2nd teach them about free energy expenditure during food production and transportation ( by encouraging them to wheel instead of get or reduce their meat aspiration ) . While both programs ascertain an increment in energy - saving action , the first , which pore on residential energy , was by far the most successful .
The Los Angeles Timesexplains that the 2nd group increased energy preservation by a mere 7 percentage , while the first increase conservation by 49 percent . Researchers believe the food and shipping programme may have been less efficacious than the residential energy computer program because , by and big , the children had less verbatim control over their family ’s solid food consumption and transportation decision — when you ’re a fifth grader , it ’s well-to-do to unplug a mogul strip than win over your parent to cycle to work .
Eight months after the initial GLEE course of study , research worker key out that the food and transfer group had all but ceased their energy - saving natural process , while the residential Department of Energy group ’s energy - saving habits were still up 27 per centum compare to their pre - GLEE activities . But perhaps the most noteworthy outcome of the subject was that the Girl Scouts not only repress their own energy consumption , but successfully taught their parents new vitality - save habits . Participants of the residential vigor GLEE course of action help their parent increase their vitality - saving conduct by 12 pct ( which was still up 6 percent nine months after ) .
The study ’s results could help researchers develop better environmental education syllabus . It ’s also encouraging to see that even tike can have a real impact on the environment , not only learning to stamp down their own energy use , but teaching others better habits . Or , as Girl Scout Rachel Swan toldScientific American , “ I get laid all of my other friends who were in GLEE with me always went home and talked to their parent … We all had a lot of fun with it because it felt nice being the one to instruct your parents things because they always teach you things . You cognize , return the favor . ”
[ h / tScientific American ]
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