Gold Award Girl Scout Luciana Gerace Creates More Inclusive Classrooms Through Sensory Support

For Gold Award Girl Scout Luciana Gerace, creating more inclusive spaces for children started with something familiar.

Growing up with a mother who is an occupational therapist, Luciana was surrounded by sensory supports from an early age. She often helped make sensory bottles and other tools for her mother’s patients and saw firsthand how meaningful those resources could be for children with autism, sensory processing disorders, and other sensory needs.

Years later, while working as a camp counselor, Luciana found herself carrying sensory tools in her own backpack to help young campers navigate transitions throughout the day.

Those experiences inspired her Gold Award project: helping make sensory support a natural and accessible part of the early childhood classroom.

“I wanted my project to serve as a way for children to receive the sensory supports that they need without leaving the natural environment of the classroom,” Luciana shared.

For her project, Luciana designed and led a team in constructing seven sensory boards with ten interchangeable panels for the Scotch Plains Baptist Christian Day School and the JCC of Central New Jersey.

Sensory boards give children opportunities to engage with different textures, movements, sounds, and activities that can help support regulation, focus, and exploration. By making the panels interchangeable, Luciana created a resource that teachers can adapt and continue using with different groups of children.

But Luciana knew that lasting change would require more than providing the finished boards.

She also led a workshop for teachers at the Christian Day School, where she discussed inclusion and demonstrated how educators could create their own sensory panels using common craft supplies and household items. The information was also shared with childhood program directors at the JCC of Central New Jersey.

Through the workshop, Luciana empowered educators to continue expanding the sensory resources available in their classrooms long after her Gold Award project was complete.

To extend the project beyond the two schools, Luciana created a website where educators and families can learn more about inclusion and sensory support.

The site includes information about incorporating sensory supports into children's everyday environments, perspectives from experts, and instructions for creating sensory boards and panels at home or in the classroom.

Luciana also included videos featuring experts she knows and shared the resource with preschools and social media groups, giving even more educators and parents access to the information.

Sustainability was an important part of her planning from the beginning. Luciana consulted with a local contractor, who donated his time to help construct the sensory board bases and advise her on materials and adhesives. The boards were designed to be durable enough to serve children for years to come.

Just as importantly, the educators who participated in Luciana’s training now have the knowledge and tools to continue finding new ways to make their classrooms welcoming and inclusive.

Luciana joined Girl Scouts as a Brownie, and service has been part of her Girl Scout experience from the start. She remembers activities like painting kindness rocks as a third grader and, later, each member of her troop taking turns leading a session in fifth grade.

Those early opportunities helped prepare her to take on larger leadership roles.

“To me, being a Girl Scout means doing everything in your power to serve others, and turning it into an enjoyable experience,” she said. “I have used my Gold Award as an opportunity to not only explore something that I am interested in but also to use leadership skills to help others.”

Through her Gold Award, Luciana transformed years of personal experience into a project designed to give children greater access to the support they need while helping teachers build classrooms where more children can feel comfortable, included, and ready to learn.

That’s what it means to be a Gold Award Girl Scout: recognizing an opportunity to make a difference and having the courage, creativity, and leadership to make it happen.

September 18, 2026