Girl Scout To Host Open House for Gold Award Project

ONEONTA—Isabel Griswold from Girl Scout Troop 30043 will hold an open house to celebrate the launch of the Oneonta World of Learning Book Nook on Saturday, February 1 from 10 a.m. to noon. The event will feature a variety of craft and reading activities, door prizes, and cake. OWL, a museum and hands-on exploratory space dedicated to learning through play, is located at 167 Young Road in Oneonta’s Fortin Park.

Griswold’s Gold Award project is titled “Reaching Neurodiverse Children Through Reading.” According to a media release, she completed research to understand the issues facing neurodiverse children as they develop reading skills, and interviewed a variety of local experts—including Huntington Memorial Children’s Librarian Donna Foote, Head Start teacher Colleen McGovern, SUNY Oneonta Librarian Sarah Rhodes and others—to gain a better understanding of how to create a book nook that would appeal to a variety of neurodiverse children.

Griswold has spread awareness of the importance of providing neurodiverse children with a variety of books and reading spaces that work for different types of neurodiversity by tabling at a number of events throughout the community. She also carried out a book drive to stock the OWL Book Nook, collecting close to 900 books from a variety of sources, including Valleyview Elementary School and SUNY Oneonta.

In addition, Griswold worked with WSKG and PBS Kids to help with an event featuring a new show about a neurodiverse raccoon named Carl the Collector, who is autistic. WSKG donated books with neurodiverse characters.

Griswold has built a shelving unit that allows children to sit in a cozy reading nook on a variety of therapeutic cushions. She has provided fidget toys and blank journals for children to use while being read to. In addition, she has included resources for parents of neurodiverse children. She thanks her advisor, Rachel Rissberger, and her team members for all their help at different stages of the project. 

On Friday, February 21, Griswold will host a winter break reading event at OWL, and she will lead an activity at OWL’s “Paintfest: Nature” event on March 22 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at FoxCare Center in Oneonta.

For more information regarding these events and OWL, visit https://sites.google.com/view/oneontaworldoflearning/home.