The Badge Archive

• Fulfills Step 1 of GSUSA Daisy App Development badge requirements.
• Fulfills Step 2 of GSUSA Brownie and Junior App Development badge requirements.

Info Needed for badge requirements: Decomposition means breaking a big thing into smaller parts. It’s like taking a toy apart into pieces or splitting a big job into little steps. If you need to clean your room, you don’t do it all at once. You can break it into smaller tasks, like picking up toys first, then making the bed.

You can also use decomposition to design an app! Instead of thinking about the whole app at once, break it into smaller pieces. What does the app do? What buttons will it have? How will people use it? When you design your app screen, start by thinking about each part—like the pictures, buttons, and words—that make it work!

Items Needed:

• Blank sheet of white paper for each scout
• Troop Coloring Supplies

Instructions:

Give scouts an example of a problem (or have them brainstorm some of their own) that a sign or poster might help. Like when a pet goes missing, when you want to bring awareness to something, or when you’re announcing an event or a request for help.

Discuss how big problems can be broken into smaller pieces to help make it easier to resolve. This is called Decomposition in computer programming. Explain how their problem they decided on (like requesting others to donate food) is a big problem of people going hungry. But they broke it down into steps – finding an organization that helps hungry people, learning about how to donate to that organization, making signs to let others know about what they learned and get help to get donations, and then they can follow through and get donations to bring to the organization.

Specific Version – Fictional Lost Buddy (For Daisies)

This activity is meant to teach the concept of sign making service projects and help them learn the concept of Decomposition in computer programming if you are doing the GSUSA Daisy/Brownie/Junior App Development badge.

Prep Needed

• Watch the Lost Pet Detective video to get a sense of the scenario to give your troop.
• Download the Lost Pet Detective workbook to use the maps on page 10 in your meeting.

Items Needed:

• Printout of the Lost Pet Detective maps on page 10 – one map for each scout.
• A Printout like this Lost Pet Poster
• Troop Coloring Supplies

Instructions:

• Inform the scouts about the Pet Detective helping their friend find their missing cat. But now their pet dog, Buddy, is lost. Feel free to show the video if you can, but pause it when “they searched everywhere” before they announce they found Buddy. Really get a connection with the issue.
• Talk about how big of a problem a missing pet is and explain making signs telling others about the missing pet is one way they can help. Have them draw a dog on the Lost Pet Posters and pretend to post them up around the meeting place, like it was a small town.
• Give them the maps and tell them that the following clues were called in by concerned citizens.
  • Clue 1 – Buddy’s home is in the lower right hand side of the town.
  • Clue 2 – There are no signs of Buddy in the grocery store across town.
  • Clue 3 – There are no signs of Buddy near the clock tower across town.
  • Clue 4 – Buddy’s collar was found on the fence of the house across the street that has an older home with a shed in the yard.
  • Clue 5 – The backyard gate is open and you hear barking… but the neighbor doesn’t own a dog.
• Where do they think Buddy might be in town? Hooray! They found buddy in an old shed in the neighbor’s yard. (You can finish the video where they announce finding Buddy if you showed the video to set the scene).
• Remind them that they need to take down their signs. As they do, explain that they broke the big problem into little steps. They made posters, the posted them around town, they waited for clues, they followed the clues to find Buddy, and they cleaned up by taking the posters back down so everyone in town would know Buddy was found. This is all called Decomposition – taking a big thing into smaller pieces.
• Note – you can also link this to GSUSA App Development by mentioning how apps could make the whole searching for clues easier. They could copy their poster. They could use a network app that connects them to others in the neighborhood to share their poster. They could collect messages and emails about people that see clues about the missing pet. All are different apps that can help.

Note to Leaders – You can learn more about decomposition with short video or a mini lesson