Gold Award Girl Scout Celebrates Music Education, Creates Sensory Music Walls
WICHITA, Kan. — Girl Scouts of Kansas Heartland congratulates Alyssa F. for becoming a Gold Award Girl Scout, a designation she earned by creating four sensory music walls and placing them in various locations around Wichita so youth community members can use them for playing, learning, and being encouraged to get outdoors.
The Gold Award is the mark of the truly remarkable — earned by a high school Girl Scout who works to address an issue she’s passionate about in a way that produces meaningful and lasting change. Whether it’s on a local, national, or global level, Gold Award Girl Scouts provide innovative solutions to significant challenges.
“Gold Award Girl Scouts don’t just change the world for the better, they change it for good — and Alyssa embodies everything this achievement stands for," said Rolinda Sample, chief executive officer of Girl Scouts of Kansas Heartland. “Alyssa addressed an issue that’s important to her — music education and getting kids outdoors — for her Gold Award, and we congratulate her on this momentous accomplishment.”
With a passion for educating youth, the outdoors, learning, and music, Alyssa knew she wanted to reach a broad audience with her Gold Award project. In an effort to educate children on music, she focused her project on creating four music sensory walls. These walls were placed in three different locations around Wichita: Sharon Baptist Church, Sunrise Christian Academy, and a local daycare.
To create the walls, Alyssa used pallets and built the wall portion. She then added different recycled items and materials such as buckets, pans, pots and crates and attached them to the wall so kids could create different sounds with the items. Along with the wall, she included spatulas, spoons, and other items that could be used to hit the buckets and pots so the children could explore the different sounds created with each tool and item.
Alyssa’s final step was creating a website and adding a QR Code to the sensory music walls so people using the walls could learn how to make their own wall as well as the benefits of using the walls.
“At first I was going to print off the materials and leave them at each wall site, but as a Girl Scout, I wanted to use my resources wisely so I created the website instead,” Alyssa said. “The turnout and usage of the sensory walls is better than I could have imagined and I’m so happy to see that kids are learning and exploring sounds and music with these walls.”
