In the summers, I tend to teach a lot.  I get requests to lead programs for our summer camps and other youth programs, so I’m out in the field with 4-8th graders a lot.  Each summer, I do a dragonfly program for the Girls in Science group at my museum and it’s a lot of fun to watch a group of middle school girls with bug nets trying desperately to catch dragonflies.  This past summer I was invited to another site to do the same program with their Girls in Science camp.  This particular group was from a much less affluent part of town than a lot of the kids I work with and were going to camp a few blocks down from a women’s prison.  You could tell that some of these girls had it a little rough at home, but they were the most amazing group of kids!  There were about 12 of them and we caught dragonflies along a greenway through the area.  And you know what?  Those girls caught more dragonflies in the hour we spent catching, photographing, and releasing dragonflies than the three other groups I’d led that month combined!  And they did it with style too.  Check out that nail polish:

That group of girls was awesome, and just thinking about them makes me smile.  So much fun!

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