Pack 325 Represented at the BSA National Meeting

Post date: Jun 9, 2011 4:21:09 AM

Pack 325 was represented at the BSA National Meeting in San Diego, California on May 26th where the first NOVA badged were awarded. Only 10 scouts were presented it there – all from Santa Clara County. Nathan and I attended and represented Pack 325's participation in STEM NOVA and we also provided feedback on the phase 1 pilot program.

Dr. Bernard Harris – Eagle Scout, twice a NASA Space Shuttle Astronaut, and head of the Bernard Harris foundation – presented the awards. Note that the top SuperNOVA medal is the "Dr. Bernard Harris" Award!

Santa Clara County earned a special award for participation in the NOVA program.

Photo from the national meeting:

Dr. Harris is in the middle; Nathan is holding the Santa Clara award plaque.

Summary of the phase 1 program from the national chairperson:

The response to our STEM-BSA program at the National Meeting in San Diego last week was simply overwhelming!

Hundreds of volunteers and professionals visited our information booth on Wednesday thru Friday and well over 60 local councils expressed interest in starting a STEM-NOVA-SUPERNOVA program in their area. And even the Scouts Canada representatives met with us to find out more about how they could get something going in their organization!

Our presentation of the first group of NOVA and SUPERNOVA awards to the 2 Cub Scouts, 7 Boy Scouts and 1 Venturer of Santa Clara Council at the Annual Business Meeting on Thursday was very successful. Dr. Bernard Harris gave a very nice talk and I received many comments afterwards about how great it was to see this included in the program. A number of the adults who worked with the youth were also present and we appreciated their time and effort in making it possible for these youth to attend.  Everyone seemed to have a great time.

Matt and I owe a special thanks to Dr. Rachel Hintz and Ron Schoenmehl who kept our information booth staffed during the event while we attended all of our committee meetings.  And also to Dr. Harris and Truman Bell (our ExxonMobil representative) who stayed with us much of time on Thursday and Friday. And of course to Jessica Ayala, who did most of the preparatory work that made it all come together so well.

Matt is taking a few days of well-deserved vacation with his lovely wife Michelle and next week we will take stock of where we are and start working on the next phase of our implementation. As soon as we can, Rachel and I will be making "tweaks" to the NOVA and SUPERNOVA outlines based on the evaluation feedback from all of you and we will set up a conference call in late June to review the changes with all of you. In the meantime, continue working with the existing materials.

Thank you so much for all each of you have done to advance the STEM-BSA initiative to this point and I can hardly wait for our next step!