Bethpage High School senior Anjali Ponugupati recently earned the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor in Girl Scouting, for a project that combined two things important to her: STEM education and giving younger students access to opportunities to explore it.
The Gold Award recognizes Senior and Ambassador Girl Scouts who identify an issue in their community, investigate its root causes and develop a lasting solution. Earning the award requires at least 80 leadership hours working on a sustainable service project.
For Anjali, the path to the Gold Award began years before she started planning her project. She joined Girl Scouts as a third grader at Charles Campagne School and became a Brownie alongside several classmates. Many of those girls remain active in her troop today, and Anjali is the first among them to earn the Gold Award.
“As soon as my Gold Project got approved last year, the other girls were motivated to start,” Anjali said. “At least two or three more in my troop are lined up to get their award, too.”
For her project, Anjali developed and led a series of six robotics workshops for elementary and middle school students at the Bethpage Public Library. Using LEGO robotics kits and iPads, she introduced participants to robotics, electrical engineering, programming, problem-solving and teamwork.
“The first day was introducing the kids to what robotics is, and then as the classes went on, I taught them about electrical engineering, programming and working together as a team,” she said. “Each session was meant to be an hour, but eventually the kids were so into it, they ended up lasting two hours!”
One young participant's determination particularly stuck with her.
“There was one girl I remember specifically. She hadn’t finished her robot, and there were only two minutes left in class,” Anjali recalled. “She said, ‘I have to continue this.’ She went to her mom and said, ‘I don’t care what happens, I’ll pay her if I have to. I’m staying here!’”
The idea grew out of Anjali’s own longtime interest in science and engineering. At Bethpage High School, she serves as vice president of research and design for the Regal Eagles robotics team, founded the school’s Biology Olympiad and has earned recognition for her science research at both the Long Island Science and Engineering Fair (LISEF) and the New York State Science and Engineering Fair (NYSSEF), as well as several other science research awards.
Through conversations with family friends, however, Anjali learned that younger students in neighboring communities do not always have the same access to STEM and robotics opportunities she has had through Bethpage Schools. Outside programs can also cost families hundreds of dollars.
“My overall goal was to make my program free of cost completely,” Anjali said, “and to introduce kids to the fun part of STEM.”
Creating a lasting impact is an important component of the Gold Award. Anjali worked with her Regal Eagles teammates and advisers at Bethpage High School to ensure the workshops would not end with her own project. The team has agreed to continue offering similar workshops as part of its community service initiatives in the years ahead.
Anjali also set out to measure what students gained from the experience. Participants completed the same survey at the beginning and end of the workshop series, allowing her to compare their understanding and attitudes toward STEM.
“Because they were primarily elementary-age kids, their first survey responses were mostly ‘I don’t know,’ ‘Maybe,’ ‘This is cool,’ things like that,” she said. “By the end of the program, though, they were giving full paragraph answers explaining that they had learned so many things. Some kids went out of their way to list all the things they had learned.”
During the final workshop, Anjali gave the students an open-ended challenge: Use what they had learned throughout the program to design and build something of their own.
“They went beyond what I was thinking they would,” she said.
The survey answers combined with the design plans the participants created for their final projects gave Anjali something even more valuable than statistics. She could see students thinking differently about what they were capable of building.
In June, Anjali was formally presented with the Girl Scout Gold Award during a ceremony hosted by Girl Scouts of Nassau County. She also received numerous certificates and citations recognizing her achievement, including recognition from local and state officials and a certificate from the White House.
As she begins her senior year and prepares for college, Anjali plans to continue pursuing the interest that inspired her Gold Award project: STEM. She hopes to study biomedical engineering, with a particular interest in regenerative medicine technology. Georgia Tech currently sits at the top of her college list.
“My brother went there. I love the campus and their life there,” she said. “They have the best program for what I want to go into. That’s my dream.”
After nearly a decade in Girl Scouts and more than 80 hours devoted to her Gold Award project, Anjali’s advice to younger Girl Scouts considering a project of their own is simple.
“Don’t overthink it,” she said. “Just pick something you’re really passionate about.”
