Senior Emma Briceno has been a Girl Scout for about 13 years. She has recently been recognized for her completion of the Girl Scout Gold Award.

The Gold Award is equivalent to the Eagle Scout Service Project for Boy Scouts. 

Briceno explains the goal of Scouts who complete the project. 

“Creating a lasting impact on your community, and not just your community, but a global impact also,” Briceno said. 

The project required a significant time commitment.

“It took me about a year and a half to complete fully,” Briceno said. 

Briceno chose to educate people throughout our community about a constitutional amendment.

“I chose the First Amendment because it’s such a big part of our daily life, and often people forget that they have these rights, which can affect you negatively,” Briceno said. 

Briceno’s audience also included Heritage High School students with the goal of educating people on their First Amendment rights.

“I traveled to Heritage High School to educate the volleyball team, but I also went to Mrs. Dunn’s class and Mr. Belcher’s class here,” Briceno said. 

Briceno explains some of the challenges she had to overcome to make her project a success. 

“I had trouble building my website in time. It took me almost all my 125 service hours,” Briceno said.  “I was originally going to do a podcast, but it was taking way too long.” 

Another difficulty was finding correct information online.

“It’s very difficult to find information without some sort of emotional attachment. All the news you see is biased in some way.” Briceno said. 

English teacher Geoff Belcher eagerly agreed for Briceno to present to his classes because her topic aligned perfectly with what his students were reading. 

“My students had just finished reading George Orwell’s novel 1984, which deals with the government spreading lies and disinformation to control the populace, and we had watched documentaries and read articles about how other countries, right now, limit their citizens’ access to information, so Emma’s slideshow about the First Amendment provided additional information about the freedoms we enjoy as American citizens,” Belcher said.