One way is to make an insect spreading board — your own nature museum made up of the most common insects in your neighborhood. It might make you think twice before squashing the next bug you see.

Here’s how to make your own bug board:

STEP 1: Get a good field guide. You can buy “Bugs & Slugs: An Introduction to Familiar North American Invertebrates” from www.scoutstuff.org ($5.95, Item No. 30403), but you can also find good guides for free at the library or on the Internet.

A good guide should provide color photos or illustrations of different bugs, along with information on their behavior and habitat.

STEP 2: Make a collecting net. You can buy one at many retail stores (often in the toy department), or you can make your own with a wire clothes hanger and a patch of nylon strainer netting available at most hardware stores.

Bend the clothes hanger into a loop. Go to the paint section of the hardware store and ask for a five-gallon nylon strainer. Weave some fishing line through the holes near the edge of the strainer and “sew” it to the clothes hanger. Use duct tape to fasten the hanger to a broom handle or a wooden dowel.

STEP 3: Construct a killing jar. Freezing is the safest and cleanest method of preparing bugs for mounting. Just place your specimens in a jar and leave the jar in the freezer until the critters are dead.

You can also enlist the help of an adult or merit badge counselor to make a killing jar that uses chemicals (such as nail polish remover). Be extra careful, as these chemicals can be dangerous to you as well as the bug.

STEP 4: Make a bug board. You can use almost any shallow box to show your insects. Sometimes the top of a large box works great. Use a material such as polystyrene foam, cardboard or fiberboard to reinforce the bottom of your board.

Regular straight pins are O.K. for pinning insects, but they might rust over time and spoil the specimen. Search online for special insect pins that will last longer.

When pinning a bug to your board, be careful to do as little damage as possible. Small bugs should be glued instead of pinned.

STEP 5: Catch some bugs. Take your field guide with you. When you get started, it might be easier to look for any bugs, instead of one specific bug. Once you’ve collected a nice variety, then you can move on to filling the holes in your collection.

Learn which bugs are common in your area. A bug collection in Wisconsin is going to look different from a bug collection in Southern California. Don’t waste your time looking for critters that don’t even live in your region.

STEP 6: Label your bugs. You can simply tear off a small piece of paper from a standard white sheet, or you can buy labels from an office supply store. Write down the name of the bug and the date and location where it was found.

Take it a step further and write down the scientific name of the bug, along with notes on other conditions in which it was found, such as temperature, the kinds of plants nearby and recent rainfall.

Beware of Carpet Beetles. If you spot some brown dust on the bottom of your bug box, your specimens are likely being targeted by the larvae of carpet beetles, which will eat mounted insects. A moth crystal inside of an envelope will keep them out. Place the entire box in the freezer for a week to get rid of the ones that have already set up shop.

Good Hunting. You can watch and study insects wherever you find them, but it might be illegal to collect them from natural areas such as state parks, national parks and wildlife refuges. Collect them instead from around your house and throughout your neighborhood.

But when he went on a long camping trip to New Mexico, things got dicey.

“I got one shower every seven days. In between, I needed to do whatever would make things bearable,” Brian says.

Dallas Shewmaker, owner of www.lowergear.com, a camping-supplies rental company, offers these hygiene tips for campers:

• Carry a small bottle of hand sanitizer in your pocket and use it frequently — especially after going to the bathroom and before eating.

• Rub down with isopropyl alcohol on cotton balls each night. Make sure you hit underarms, feet and groin areas.

• Don’t wash your hands in a standing pool of water. Often, the water will have more bacteria than your hands.

• Carry at least two pairs of socks. Wash out one pair each night.

• Carry a small bottle of biodegradable soap to give yourself an occasional sponge bath.

• Using antiperspirant in the backcountry is generally not recommended. Scents attract animals and bugs. But if you do, make sure it’s unscented.

• Carry a travel-size toothbrush, toothpaste and dental floss — and use them often.

1. Select a skipping stone. The stone should be mostly flat, about the size of the palm of your hand and about the weight of a tennis ball. Triangular stones tend to skip best. Avoid circular stones. They’re less stable.

2. Grip the stone. Hold it with your thumb and middle finger, then firmly hook your index finger along the edge. Your thumb goes on the top of the stone, not around the edge.

3. Throw the stone. Stand up straight, facing at a slight angle to the water. Try to maintain this position during your entire windup and release. The lower your hand is at the release, the better.

Throw out and down at the same time. A skipping stone is bouncing off the water, so give it plenty of downward force. Try throwing faster instead of harder — strength is not the key, quickness is.

4. Release the stone. The faster the stone is spinning, the better it will skip. Spin it as hard as you can with a quick snap of your wrist. The stone should hit the water parallel to the surface.

Jerdone McGhee is founder of the North American Stone Skipping Association.

Today’s treasure might be marked N 41 51.649 W 085 46.433.

Confused? Then you probably haven’t heard about geocaching (pronounced geo-cashing).

Geocaching, a modern-day treasure hunt activity, uses global positioning systems (GPS), handheld radio-based navigation systems that give a location’s longitude and latitude “address” with coordinates. For example, N 41 51.649 W 085 46.433 will lead you to Camp Tamarack in Michigan.

To play, someone must first hide a cache, or container, with an object inside. The hider gives the seeker the item’s coordinates, and the seeker uses GPS to find the item. “It sounds simple, but it can be quite hard,” says Erik Sherman, who wrote the book “Geocaching: Hike and Seek With Your GPS.” “The GPS signal will get you within about 40 feet of the spot, but some people are fiendishly clever in how they hide the cache.”

Caches have been hidden in all kinds of places, such as the heart of Manhattan, Antarctica and even 120 feet under water.

THE FUN IS IN THE FINDING

Bringing home the treasure might be the goal, but “the real fun is the search itself,” Sherman says.

And when you find a cache and take a trinket, you must leave a trinket for the next finder.

Life Scout Khris Brown, 17, of Troop 963, Valparaiso, Ind., has participated in geocaching with his troop.

“My favorite part is hiding the caches,” he says. “It’s fun to see how long it takes the other Scouts to find it.”

Geocaching is a great way to hone your navigation skills.

“Bring a compass with you because GPS units can have trouble under heavy tree cover,” Sherman advises. “And be sure to remember where you entered the area so you can get back out.”

REMEMBER THE RULES

Avid geocacher Dr. Mary Stevens, who mapped out the first geocaching course for a national Scout jamboree, says there are four basic geocaching rules:

1. Safety: Stay far away from traffic or railroad crossings. Don’t place a cache higher than six feet or require dangerous climbing or swimming to retrieve it. Avoid hiding caches near electrical switch boxes. And always enforce the buddy system.

2. Respect the environment: Never bury a cache in the ground. Avoid sensitive ecosystems. Don’t place caches in archaeological or historical sites. Don’t deface any object.

3. Respect private property: Get permission from landowners to hide caches. Caches are not allowed on national park lands, national wildlife reserves, military installments and school properties.

4. Be a positive ambassador for Scouting by following the Scout Oath and Law.

MORE INFORMATION

For the best online geocache information in the world, check out geocaching.com and its excellent frequently-asked-questions page.

Here are some good books to get you started in geocaching:

For Younger Readers

• “Let’s Go Geocaching: Boys’ Life Reader” (DK Publishing, 2008)

For Older Readers

• “Geocaching: Hike and Seek with Your GPS”, by Erik Sherman (Apress, 2008)
• “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Geocaching”, by Jack W. Peters (Alpha, 2004)

LEARN FISH HABITS

Fish behave differently after dark.

With no light, they depend on their sonar senses. Tiny nerve endings around the face and along the centerline of both sides pick up the smallest vibrations of bait movement, wiggling and spinning of artificial lures. So keep baits moving.

And because predator fish can’t see as well at night, smaller panfish will come out of heavy cover to roam about looking for food. These include bluegills, rock bass, redear sunfish, crappies, yellow perch, small bass and small catfish.

LANTERN LESSONS

Lanterns do more than just help you see.

Flooding the water surface with light brings in tiny critters called phototropes to the top. They are attracted to light. They, in turn, bring the small minnows to feed on them. And panfish come to dine on the minnows.

Then, you come in — to dine on the panfish.

Just for fun, take along a magnifying glass. You’ll be amazed at the number of phototropic organisms in
the lighted surface waters.

Don’t forget that lanterns attract bugs. Take along some insect repellant.

TACTICAL TIPS

When fishing from shore or a dock, cover the hook with your bait and try several different places.

Try fishing around weeds, lily pads, brush and other panfish hangouts. Dunk the bait and move it around until you catch your first fish.

Where there is one, there usually are more. Keep trying different depths until you begin catching fish.

Once you locate a school, you can catch enough for the whole crew. If you don’t catch fish within your immediate area, try casting out farther. Eventually, you will find the fish.

A flashlight is handy for locating different kinds of cover.

If you’re using a bobber, drop the bait close to the edges of the cover and keep moving until you cross paths with your target.

PRACTICE AT HOME

Casting can be tough when you can’t see. Practice in the backyard with a cork over your hook or with a practice plug. Eventually, you’ll be able to tell how far you’re casting without even looking at the line.

Changing sinkers, bobbers and hooks is also a challenge in the dark. If you practice at home, you won’t waste valuable time at the lake when your line breaks.

SAFETY FIRST

• Get permission from an adult before heading into the dark.
• Don’t go alone. Even in daylight, fish with a buddy. Tell someone where you’re going to be, how you’re going to get there and when you are going to return.
• If you have one, take a mobile phone. You might catch your limit early and want a ride home.
• Take at least one flashlight for each fisherman. And take an extra set of batteries.

It’s July 2008 at Sid Richardson Scout Ranch just outside of Fort Worth, Tex., but it might as well be July 1908 in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

That’s how authentic the outdoor living-history portion of the Road to Ranger high-adventure camp at Sid Richardson can be.

“I made a crowbar,” Hunter says. “I had never done that before.”

Hunter and the rest of his crew are here to make progress toward their Venturing Ranger Award, an achievement that requires knowledge on a wide variety of outdoors sports and interests.

At the blacksmithing cabin, the guys are making their crowbars from raw metal. Sid Richardson staff members handle the metal and the viciously hot stove while participants handle the hammer.

It’s a lot heavier and harder than it looks. The metal is so hot it bends more and more each time it’s pounded by the hammer. One errant swing and the bar could be twisted into an undesired shape.

“It was red-hot orange,” says Nick Jordan from Crew 1969 in Hillsboro, Tex. “You have to make sure you hit it firm on the heated part.”

With a little practice and only a few discarded chunks of metal, everybody has his own homemade crowbar. And everybody’s one step closer to Ranger.

COPING WITH CHALLENGES

Outdoor living history is one of 18 electives Venturers can choose from as they work their way to Ranger. (Participants must complete four of the electives to earn the award.)

At the U.S. Cavalry frontier-history outpost, campers dress and act like soldiers from the 1800’s. They scout the area and eventually fire cannons to protect the post from invading forces.

Another elective is COPE, or challenging outdoor personal experience. Sid Richardson’s COPE program pushes participants to expand their comfort zone to include activities that maybe they didn’t think they could do before, like scaling a state-of-the-art climbing wall.

“We climbed a 30-foot wall and got some people higher than they would normally go,” says Austin Jones, 18, with Crew 229 in Harker Heights, Tex. “We had to climb the wall and then rappel down it. It was a really fun experience.”

Another section of the COPE program is the Mohawk Walk. Staffers rig a series of ropes tied between trees. Participants must use teamwork to walk across the foot-high rope without touching the ground.

“You have to use your friends to keep stabilized on the rope,” Austin says. “There are a few things you can grab onto at some spots, but basically it’s impossible to do by yourself.”

Other electives offered include shooting sports, equestrian and scuba.

In other words, everything you need to take some serious steps toward the Ranger Award. But despite the conveniences of a program like Road to Ranger, the award is not something you can earn in one week.

That’s why it’s called Road to Ranger, not Destination Ranger.

THE CORE OF THE MATTER

Ranger candidates must complete eight core requirements.

Core requirements offered at Sid Richardson include land navigation, Leave No Trace and wilderness survival.

In the dining hall, a camp staffer leads a discussion on putting together a wilderness survival kit. Some items are obvious: rope, compass, signal mirror, whistle.

Others, not so much. A pencil and paper?

“To keep your sanity,” says Sid Richardson survival expert Jonathan Wood. “Most experts say after three days your mind starts degrading. You get angry and you want to vent.”

Other items include a slingshot and adhesive bandages. The slingshot can be used to hunt small game. Adhesive bandages can be used for tape. And the little pieces of paper that come off the bandages make great tinder for an emergency fire.

After the discussion with Wood, campers get their own wilderness survival experience. No tents, no sleeping bags. Just one night in the wild, man and nature.

“I’m building a shelter with a rope and a tarp,” Austin says. “I’ve always been fascinated with wilderness survival, but I’ve learned even more here.”

No worries.

Just take a deep breath and use these handy checklists. You’ll find one for most outdoor adventures, plus insider tips from our experts and a couple of surprise things you didn’t know you needed.

• Scout outdoor essentials
• Gear for a warm-weather outing
• Gear for a cold-weather outing
• Gear for a paddling outing
• Gear for a bicycling outing

The best-known snow shelter is the igloo. A brilliant use of engineering and resources, this simple dome made out of snow blocks is both strong and versatile.

THE MOST FAMOUS SNOW SHELTER

Arctic cultures such as the Eskimo and the Inuit developed it, and over time they came up with a hundred tricks to make the shelter more comfortable and sturdy, including making the entrance small (to help keep heat in) and melting the inside of the dome and letting it refreeze (for increased strength).

The earliest reference of igloo use came from the Vikings, who settled parts of Greenland and explored the eastern Canadian coast about a thousand years ago. They found natives living in igloos, but didn’t use them themselves because they considered the technology inferior.

History has proven otherwise, as the Vikings lasted for only about four centuries in the harsh climate of Greenland, while the native peoples are still carving igloos from the landscape today. Six hundred years after the tough Vikings were defeated by the tougher weather of the Little Ice Age, Boy Scouts still use the design of the igloo to keep warm.

BUILDING AN IGLOO

Diameter: Not to exceed 10 feet. Anything bigger would require a perfect dome, which is next to impossible to construct in the field.

Materials: Top layers of dry powder won’t work. Pack mounds of snow until they harden, or cut blocks of snow from the depth where your feet stop sinking.

Entrance: Build a door in the ground, about 18 inches lower than the ground inside the igloo, and tunnel below the wall into the igloo. For proper ventilation, never seal or close the entrance.

Walls: Cut the blocks into a spiral layer, leaning one block against the next. Keep the interior wall smooth so moisture can run down the side of the wall, instead of dripping from the ceiling. Include a vent hole to allow for better circulation.