By Noreen Francis, PTGSC trainer and Senior Troop Leader

Boston and PTGSC are very fortunate to have the "Community Solar System". This is a scale model of our solar system created by the Boston Museum of Science (MOS) and the Smithsonian Boston staff. The model of the sun resides in the planetarium lobby at MOS and the models of the nine planets are located throughout the greater Boston area in MBTA stops, hotels, malls and libraries. The size and location of each planet were calculated to match the scale of the sun.

After attending the NASA Solar System Workshop at MACY in April, 2002 and encouraging PTGSC staff , trainers and leaders to attend a mini workshop in Boston in May, 2002 we had a core number of trained personnel to develop a council wide event around the Community Solar System and incorporate the program NASA educators had developed. Mary Strom, Katie Gregory and I decided to organize a PTGSC program on April 5, 2003 called "Exploring Our Solar System". We wanted the cadette and senior scouts to take an active lead in this program and we wanted the entire council to be excited about this event. So we focused on communicating the event to Girl Scout Coordinators, council trainers and staff members. In order to have a council wide event centered in Boston be successful everyone needed to know about it and be involved.

We began with mini workshops where we did one or two activities at our Trainers' Update and Volunteers' Day. We did activities at Service Unit meetings to introduce leaders to our program. Mary and Katie held monthly planet contests between the staff departments with a prize awarded to the best planet and a final award to the best solar system.

Cadette and Senior troops volunteered to learn and develop activities from the NASA program, design and run a sun or planet station on April 5, 2003. We had a training day at MOS in January where 100 cadettes and seniors and 25 adults attended our kick off and received a kit with activities for their station. The girls began practicing the activities at troop meetings and worked on how to present the activities to Brownies and Junior Girl Scouts. Katie, Mary and I assisted the troops as they developed their plans, attending troop meetings, answering emails and phone calls. The girls were amazing and creative using the NASA activities and adding their own finesse. They did research and made posters and costumes, had edible activities like the edible land rover, added a story teller and face painting, and some follow up activities that troop leaders could do at their meetings.

525 girls and 150 adults from 25 cities and towns across PTGSC participated in Exploring our Solar System despite the heavy rains and wind on April 5, 2003. Community support was terrific and the host sites provided indoor space and tables and assisted the girls in many different ways. We had some local media coverage and a number of families ask about our Girl Scout program as they ran into stations in various places across greater Boston. The evaluations from troops attending the program and troops running stations were very positive. It was a wonderful event. Science was fun and space was awesome!