AMERICAN FEDERATION OF MINERALOGICAL SOCIETIES Future Rockhounds of America Badge Program Jim Brace-Thompson AFMS Juniors Program Chair [email protected] (805) 659-3577 This packet is available on-line on the AFMS website: www.amfed.org © 2004, 2008, Jim Brace-Thompson & American Federation of Mineralogical Societies AMERICAN FEDERATION OF MINERALOGICAL SOCIETIES Future Rockhounds of America Badge Program MISSION STATEMENT Future Rockhounds of America is a nationwide nonprofit program within the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies that develops and delivers quality youth activities in the earth sciences and lapidary arts in a fun, family environment. Our underlying goals are to foster science literacy and arts education through structured activities that are engaging and challenging and by which kids—and the adults who mentor them—learn while having fun. INTRODUCTION . Philosophy behind the FRA Badge Program & Suggestions on Using It I’ve developed this manual so as to enable the American Federation of Mineralogical Societies to sponsor a youth program via Future Rockhounds of America, a program that rewards kids on an on-going basis as a means of encouraging and cultivating their interest in the earth sciences and lapidary arts. Through this, we’ll uphold our chartered goals as nonprofit, educational organizations by actively seeking to foster and develop science literacy and arts education among our youngest members. My guiding philosophy has three underpinnings. They come from both my own values as a person invested in the positive development of young people and from a wealth of research indicating that if one wants to design and deliver programs that effectively promote positive development among young people, three steps are crucial to enact. We much provide young people opportunities to learn important skills. We must provide these opportunities in the context of positive and continuing youth-adult relationships. And, once youth have these skills, we must give them the opportunity to participate in, as leaders of, the programs we present to them. So first, we learn by doing. Book knowledge is great, but reading 1,001 books won’t craft a cab. You’ve got to roll up your sleeves, slice a rock, and watch your thumbnails disappear as you shape and grind that first special gem! Second, we are motivated by goals that are attainable and that offer tangible rewards and recognition, especially if we’re given a clear roadmap and consistent support and guidance toward reaching those goals. With kids, this means encouraging supportive adult-youth relationships through adult mentors who pledge a relatively long-term commitment. The best program would be one in which children, youth, and adults work, learn, and grow together. The importance of fostering—and maintaining —supportive relationships cannot be stressed enough. A basic expectation of clubs enrolling kids in FRA should be genuine, active, and sustained commitment on the part of the individual youth leaders and the entire club in order to foster strong relationships between adults and young people and young people and their peers. Third, kids are motivated the most when they participate the most, both in choosing the activities they’d like to engage in and in helping to shape those activities. It’s with these thoughts in mind that I’ve developed an AFMS/FRA series of guided activities modeled after the Boy and Girl Scouts Merit Badge™ systems. In the following pages, I describe clusters of activities children and youth could do either on their own or at club meetings or workshops and the badges they can earn as a result. For instance, one is a Rocks & Minerals cluster that involves building one’s own mineral ID kit with readily available tools and then demonstrating how to use it to identify several common minerals. Another cluster revolves around Lapidary Arts and requires planning and crafting a project such as a cab, wire-wrapped necklace, soapstone sculpture, etc., while also learning the basics of shop tools and safety. In this packet, I lay the groundwork for fifteen badges covering the full spectrum of our hobby, including: Rocks & Minerals Leadership Earth Resources Earth Processes Fossils Earth in Space Lapidary Arts Gold Panning & Prospecting Collecting Gemstone Lore & Legend Showmanship Stone Age Tools & Art Communication Rocking on the computer Field Trips Local youth leaders are encouraged to adjust the level of each activity to match the age range of the kids involved. Take, for instance, the mineral identification project (Activity 1.2). Very young children might be taught only the basics of color and hardness, and the youth leader could guide them through a hands-on session with just a few very common minerals that are easily identified, such as quartz, calcite, sulfur, malachite, galena, mica, and hematite. Older kids might be given more of a challenge, using a wider range of characteristics to identify a wider range of minerals on their own or in teams after a basic overview. You’ll also find some activities overlap and can be used to help earn more than one badge at the same time. For instance, among the activities for the Rocks & Minerals and Fossils badges, kids are encouraged to collect rocks, minerals, and fossils, thus simultaneously fulfilling the requirements of Activity 5.1 for the Collecting badge. These aren’t intended to be isolated, individual activities but part of an integrated whole that ultimately will help kids earn a “Rockhound” badge as a mark of significant achievement after earning a minimum of six of the fifteen badges. Youth should become a central part of our efforts in order to best ensure that we are providing activities that our kids find engaging and worth their time. Thus, I welcome feedback and suggestions from both local youth leaders and kids themselves. How can the existing activities be improved? What new activities can we add? I envision this as an evolving program that grows, adapts, and improves with time and use. It’s also with youth voice and commitment in mind that I developed the Leadership badge with activities that encourage our more enthusiastic and ambitious junior members to take charge of selecting and organizing activities for their peers. Kids should have choices about which activities they participate in, and they should have a chance to help shape those activities. It’s through youth voice and participation that we engender empowerment and a social commitment and sense of belonging. It’s often said that our clubs and societies are declining and, therefore, that we need to attract more young people in order to keep our clubs alive. But saying it in this way puts the cart before the horse. Instead, the focus needs to be on what is best for our youth. Only then will we fire the interest of kids in ways that engender a sense of belonging, with meaningful opportunities from which a lifelong interest and commitment will emerge naturally. Let’s not put our clubs first—let’s put kids first! If we can find ways to make youth responsible and fully engaged participants, not just recipients, the long-term health of our clubs will follow as a natural result. Suggestions on Forming a New Youth Group in Your Club If your local society or club doesn’t already have a youth group in place, here are five general “rules” I’ve learned as a result of talking with folks who have taken the initiative to begin one: • Capitalize on your existing pool of talent. It’s hard to find someone who knows everything about every facet of rockhounding, but in most clubs you find an amazingly diverse storehouse of individual knowledge. One person has an intense love of fossils, another is an expert cab crafter, another has an amazing mineral collection. Start by identifying adults within the ranks of your club’s members and their individual strengths. Then gather commitments! Just one member a month committing to help with a presentation or activity will carry you through your first year. Make it clear that this needs to be a club commitment, not the project of any single individual. • Plan before you start. How will your activities be organized? You should have procedures spelled out, and they should be more-or-less consistent from meeting- to-meeting so expectations are clear for everyone involved and to create a familiar sense of rhythm for the kids. You might choose to devote 10 to 20 minutes of your usual club meeting to a Pebble Pup Presentation; or you might choose a monthly activity or workshop at a member’s home. Whatever you choose, keep the structure and expectations more-or-less consistent. In addition to planning the structure of a typical meeting, you should plan your entire first year’s calendar in advance, gathering commitments from club members to take on specific months. Then, publicize the schedule in your club bulletin and elsewhere so everyone knows what’s coming and appropriate preparations can be made well in advance rather than moving from meeting to meeting in a last-minute rush to find a new topic, activity, or speaker. • Center meetings around an activity. Most adult meetings are centered around a lecture or presentation, and during these, you’ll observe kids a) sleeping or b) running the hallways. The best way to channel kids’ curiosity and energy is through hands-on activities. There should be a brief presentation to set the stage, but the bulk of your meeting should be activity-oriented. For instance, in introducing fossils, you very briefly should give kids the utmost basics on what a fossil is and on the fossilization process and then move quickly to sturdy specimens kids can see and touch, perhaps with a couple large-format picture books and dinosaur models as illustrations.