About
Our Earn-Your-Way-Back initiative applies only to girls+ who have participated in an in-person Terranaut Club program before and want to come back for another. Submitting an Earn-Your-Way-Back activity does not guarantee that you will be chosen for a program, and depends heavily on how many nominees we get each summer. Please keep in mind you still need to be nominated for programs by an adult that knows you well.
The point of our Earn-Your-Way-Back initiative is to make sure that participants are taking what they’ve learned from our programs to heart and are applying the lessons in their everyday lives! We have many example activities listed below, but you’re also welcome to think of your own and e-mail us for approval. Be sure to ask your parent/guardian for permission before completing your activity, and come back to this page after you’re done to submit your short report by May 1st. Don’t forget to get photos of you doing your activity if it’s relevant!
If you’ve done an Earn-Your-Way-Back activity in a past year, you have to pick a new one this year!
Example Activities
NEW THIS YEAR!
Take part in one of our upcoming events and write us a short report to complete your earn-your-way-back activity. Upcoming events include:
April Guest Speaker Dr. Ellen Boyd
Afternoon at the Vet: Cracking Cases with Dr. Ellen Boyd. Join us to learn from Dr. Ellen about diagnosing and solving different animal illnesses (using real cases!) and becoming a veterinarian.
Data Science and Coding Workshops
Attend one of our data science and coding workshops in April with Terranaut Club president Danielle Quinn. Workshops are offered at three age ranges: Junior (9-12), Intermediate (12-15), and Advanced (15-18).
Career Activities
- Write an e-mail/letter to a female scientist asking them about their career or thanking them for their work (this can be a scientist you know or that you’ve seen on the Internet). Include a copy of your letter with your earn-your-way-back report, and keep us posted with any responses you receive!
- Thinking about what you might want to study after high school, do some research and find at least 3 different programs that you might be interested in. Tell us about them. How long are the programs? Where are they? How much do they cost? What do you like about them?
Environmental & STEM Advocacy Activities
- Write a letter to a company telling them what you think about their environmental practices. Are they good? Could they be better?
- Join or start an environmental club at your school. Help teach other students about how to become activists for the environment.
- Attend a climate march/rally.
- Leave it better than you left it! Choose an area, like a beach, park, trail, or other public space, and conduct your own environmental clean-up! Invite some friends and/or family, don’t forget to use gloves and be careful of sharp objects! If it looks dangerous, ask an adult to pick it up for you. Document your clean-up with pictures, and/or a reflection on where you went and what you were able to collect. Include this with your earn-your-way-back report.
- Get outside! Create a week-long, Monday-Sunday schedule for yourself, penciling-in at least one outdoor activity for yourself for each day of the week. Your activities should take a minimum of 30-minutes each, and can extend for as long as you want! Be sure to also include the projected weather forecast for each day, so that you know what types of activities will be suitable for the weather. Acceptable activities could include going for a walk, enjoying a swim in a pool or at the beach, foraging safely in your local environment, hanging/playing outside with friends/family, gardening, helping a parent with lawn work, enjoying time outside with a pet etc. Include a picture or copy of your schedule with your earn-your-way-back report, and reflect on how your week went in your report.
- Design and build a wildlife structure that helps support local flora and fauna populations. Examples of structures include building and installing a bat-box or bird house, designing your own pollinator garden with native vegetation, building a small shelter for local feral cat communities, among other options. Document your design and installation process with pictures to support your work, and monitor your structure for any wildlife activity. Reflect on how your structure supported any wildlife in your area in your Earn-Your-Way-Back report.
- Explore your natural environment! Grab a couple friends or family members and go on a nature hike to explore the local flora and fauna in the area. Don’t forget your field guides or naturalist apps (like iNaturalist, Seek, eBird) so that you can identify some of the plants and animals you encounter. Keep track of what you can identify and submit a list with your collection of at least 5 observations with your earn-your-way-back report.
- Start a nature journal and write in it at least once per day for a week, documenting what you see, hear, and feel in the environment around you.
Artistic Activities
- Create a STEM-inspired illustration, like a scientific illustration of an organism or habitat, a sketch of a woman in science, or another STEM inspired scene. Provide a description to accompany your illustration by telling what inspired you to draw your illustration and why. If you choose to draw a certain woman in science, include some of their major accomplishments in your description.
- Design your own infographic to raise awareness for a topic of interest. This can include an infographic on a threatened species, a specific conservation concern, or for a STEM-related cause such as why it’s important to support opportunities for women in STEM! Infographics combine images and facts to deliver information to the public. See examples by Googling “Environmental Infographic”. Possible online programs to support your design include Canva, PowerPoint, and Pictochart. You may also design your infographic by hand! Include a copy of your infographic with your earn-your-way-back report.
- Watch one of our past Guest Speaker presentations on our YouTube channel and draw a picture/create an image about something that you learned.
Reading Activities
- Reading is power! Choose a STEM-themed novel/audiobooks, and read/listen with intent. Book choices can range from scientific non-fiction about a topic of interest, biographies/autobiographies of an individual involved in STEM, or any other STEM-related novel. Reflect on what you learned in your earn-your-way-back report, and include a picture of the book cover when you submit.
- Find a science-themed magazine and tell us about female and minority representation in it. How many scientists or authors were women? How many were women of colour?
Activity Report
Fill out the following Google Form, and email us at coordinator@terranautclub.com with any additional materials, such as presentations, infographics, pictures etc., required for the specific Earn-Your-Way-Back activities listed above.
