Incredible Georgia girl earns highest Girl Scout honor, the Gold Award
ATLANTA - A Smyrna ninth-grader has earned the highest Girl Scout award for creating math videos for sixth graders to help them during the pandemic.
Gabrielle Tobin's love of helping others started with her 10th birthday. She wanted to give gifts, rather than receive them. She adopted Lindley 6th Grade Academy in Cobb County and started donating school supplies. Once the pandemic hit, she became concerned that students could fall behind, particularly in math.
"It feels great that I can help people," Girl Scout Gabrielle Tobin commented.
The Lovett 9th grader has accomplished something that only 6% of Girl Scouts do. She earned the highest award offered, the prestigious Gold Award, for her peer-to-peer math videos.
She created them earlier in the pandemic to prevent students at the Lindley 6th Grade Academy from falling behind when their school building closed.
"Peer-to-Peer learning is more effective than teacher learning because you are hearing voices of somebody who is near your age," Tobin remarked.
Gabby, as she is affectionately known and seven of her friends put together 13 math videos that are gaining popularity. The Lovett 9th grader invested more than 200 community service hours into the project which includes research, preparation, and production.
Now, the Cobb County School District is using them, a charter school in North Carolina, Breakthrough Atlanta, and most recently a school in the Bahamas.
Girl Scout leaders said this project really proves one Girl Scout can have a global impact.
"Isn't it cool to see what a girl can do? We are thankful that Gabby has gotten some exposure for her project and more people were able to learn about it. To take something that started as a project for a small number of people then scales it up. It's amazing," beamed Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta CEO Amy Dosik.
Tobin is now getting her math videos translated into Spanish to address another market. She said this is only the beginning. The aspiring oncologist has started a foundation and plans to shoot more videos.
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