A Santa Clarita Girl Scout is using her leadership skills to make positive changes in the community, while pursuing the highest achievement, the Gold Award.

“Earning the Gold Award requires spending at least 80 hours planning and implementing a challenging, large-scale project that is innovative, engages others, and has a lasting impact on its targeted community,” according to a news release.

This high-status award recognizes Girl Scouts in 9th through 12th grade for outstanding accomplishments in leadership, community service, career planning and personal development.

Heather Griffiths, a 10th grader in Troop 6252, chose STEM as her topic for the Gold Award project because she’s been interested in STEM all her life, especially science.

Girl Scout Heather Griffiths working to achieve Gold Award, highest scout achievement.

If she wins the Gold Award, she says she hopes to obtain a scholarship and get accepted to a school of her choice in engineering or another STEM related field.

Griffiths recently taught kids how to make LED ornaments at the Boys and Girls Club in Santa Clarita.

This month, she will be leading two more workshops in the community with STEM guest speakers.

“The workshops are focused for kids and to get them to learn that STEM is fun, not just boring math stuff,” said Griffiths. “It’s also an opportunity to learn about professionals in these careers.”

Griffiths is inviting students to attend workshops with speakers from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Jan. 23 and another workshop with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works on Jan. 30.

Both workshops will be held at the Los Angeles County Stevenson Ranch Library from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Children ages 7-13 are welcomed to sign up to attend by contacting the Los Angeles County Stevenson Ranch Library at (661) 255-2707.

Only six percent of all eligible Girl Scouts achieve the Gold Award nationwide and since 1916 about one million Girl Scouts have earned their Gold Award or its equivalent, according to the news release.

Girls who earn their Girl Scout Gold Award automatically enter the military one rank higher, and qualify for college scholarships and additional national service awards.

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