Colorado Girl Scout troop creates "peace path" to help classmates resolve conflicts
A Girl Scout troop in Colorado is tackling conflict resolution with a project designed to help classmates settle arguments on their own.
The girls of Troop 65460 at Prospect Valley Elementary School created a "peace path" as part of their effort to earn the Bronze Award, the highest award for Girl Scouts at their age level.
Long after the final bell rings, the students are still working on the project they hope leaves a lasting impact on their school community.
"I hope that this sort of leads to a legacy in our school, and it will help a lot of kids out," said fifth grader and troop member Annette Carache-Pineda. "The best part? Probably this project."
To earn the award, troops must identify a community issue and create a sustainable project to address it.
"We thought for our Bronze Award, a peace path would be great to help with our school community," troop member Camilla Gomez said. "If there is any issues, we can use the peace path to help resolve this."
The peace path uses cue cards with prompts students can follow during disagreements.
"It's basically saying, 'oh, I feel this when …' and then they state how they feel," Camilla said. "And the yellow card goes next, and they say, 'oh, I feel this when …'"
The troop also consulted experts in conflict resolution while developing the project.
"I think that we have less and less social contact with each other, whether that's because of social media and screens or COVID," said Jessica Riley, the social-emotional learning specialist at Prospect Valley Elementary School. "Our students just have a lot less time to practice those skills, and they really rely on adults to help them resolve conflicts."
"Giving them the tools to be able to do this is going to have a really far-reaching impact," she continued.
As part of the project, the troop created enough cards for every classroom, presented the idea to teachers, and produced a video explaining how to use them.
"It's all worth it," Annette said.
