Girl Scouts Of Eastern Oklahoma Unveil New Aerospace Adventure Patch

Only around 6 percent of airline pilots are women and the Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma want to encourage girls to enter the field.

The Girl Scouts have a new badge called the Aerospace Adventure badge that rewards girls for learning about the field and meeting with professionals. Girl Scouts from across Green Country celebrated the release of the new Aerospace Adventure badge. Ruby Anton is a Girl Scout and she’s ready to get started.

"One of my main interests is the STEM area, so I want to be a mechanic whenever I grow up,” said Anton. “This really just interests me. So I was super excited that they have a patch that we can work on."

SueAnn Alexander is an airline captain and only 2 percent of all captains are women. She wants girls to know at a young age that there are lots of jobs they can do in this industry.

"That's one of the things that this patch can do, is to help to remove those barriers to women getting into the aviation career field early enough,” said Alexander. “So they can get their licenses and they can be pilots."

The important part of the patch is getting to know women already in the field, who can mentor the Girl Scouts.

"Girls can Google a lot of things, but it's really that personal, one-on-one time that I think is going to be important to their decision as to whether or not this is a path they want to go,” said Alexis Higgins, the CEO of the Tulsa International Airport.

The Girl Scouts believe they can do anything they set their minds to.

"I can build things and stuff like that,” said Izzy White, a Girl Scout. “Because some people think that I can't build things, so I would like them to know that I can build a lot of things."

While this patch is unique to the Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma, leaders say they hope Girl Scouts across the country will add a similar patch.