On March 12, 2021, the 109th birthday of the Girl Scouts of America (GSUSA) organization, America Makes and the Girl Scouts of North East Ohio (GSNEO) proudly announced their partnership to promote STEM education through additive manufacturing techniques to the more than 25K GSNEO members with plans to launch the program to the 2.5M Girl Scouts nationally.
The organizations will also create a Playbook for best practices on integrating additive into Girl Scout programming for use when deploying the new America Makes Additive MFG Patch—the first-ever additive manufacturing patch.
This patch will be earned through engagement in the technical areas of Design, Manufacturing, and Post-Production. Based on industry recognized credentials, the America Makes Additive MFG Patch is aligned to many Girl Scout Badges, including STEM and others where additive can be applied and integrated. Badges are a key component of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience, which focuses on four content pillars of Outdoors, Life Skills, Entrepreneurship, and STEM, with the goal of fostering courage, confidence, and character in girls to prepare them for a lifetime of leadership.