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About Scouts

Architecture

Architecture is not just the special buildings like cathedrals, museums, or sports stadiums we read about or see on television; it is as normal as the homes, places of worship, schools, and shopping malls where we live, worship, work, learn, and play every day. However, architecture is more than just common shelter; building has always satisfied the human need to create something of meaning. Even the simplest form of architecture is a work of art that requires thought and planning.

Hiking

Hiking is a terrific way to keep your body and mind in top shape, both now and for a lifetime. Walking packs power into your legs and makes your heart and lungs healthy and strong. Exploring the outdoors challenges you with discoveries and new ideas. Your senses will improve as you use your eyes and ears to gather information along the way.

Graphic Arts

The field of graphic arts includes many kinds of work in the printing and publishing industries. Graphic arts professionals are involved in the creation of all kinds of printed communication, from business cards to books to billboards. The scope of printing communications is huge.

Golf

Golf is unique because the players police themselves. Other sports depend upon referees or umpires to apply penalties when there are infractions of the rules. In golf, every player is expected to act honorably, and the welfare and integrity of the game rely on every player's honesty. This is why golf often is referred to as a "gentleman's game."

Geology

Geology is the study of Earth. It includes the study of materials that make up Earth, the processes that change it, and the history of how things happened, including human civilization, which depends on natural materials for existence.

Genealogy

Exploring your roots—where your family name came from, why your family lives where it does, what your parents and grandparents did for fun when they were your age—can be fascinating. Discovering your ancestors back through history is what genealogy is all about.

Gardening

Humans have been growing plants for thousands of years. Farmers and horticulturists make their living growing food and other plants, while other people grow gardens for pleasure. Becoming a good gardener requires a Scout to understand the science of growing plants—how to prepare the soil, how to select and plant seeds, and how to care for the growing plants.

Forestry

In working through the Forestry merit badge requirements, Scouts will explore the remarkable complexity of a forest and identify many species of trees and plants and the roles they play in a forest's life cycle.They will also discover some of the resources forests provide to humans and come to understand that people have a very large part to play in sustaining the health of forests.

Archery

Archery is a fun way for Scouts to exercise minds as well as bodies, developing a steady hand, a good eye, and a disciplined mind. This merit badge can provide a thorough introduction to those who are new to the bow and arrow—but even for the experienced archer, earning the badge can help to increase the understanding and appreciation of archery.

Fly-Fishing

Fly-fishing is a specialized form of fishing that combines skill and artistry. Because it is so rich with tradition, it is a passion for millions of people. The beauty of the water, the solitude, and the skills that the sport requires have made fly-fishing very important in the lives of many notable people.

Fishing

In Scouting for Boys, Baden-Powell offers this advice: "Every Scout ought to be able to fish in order to get food for himself. A tenderfoot [beginner] who starved on the bank of a river full of fish would look very silly, yet it might happen to one who had never learned to catch fish."

Fish and Wildlife Management

Wildlife management is the science and art of managing the wildlife—both animals and fish—with which we share our planet. Maintaining the proper balance and the dynamics that go with it requires humankind's attention. We use this stewardship tool to help minimize or eradicate the possibility of extinction of any given species. We want our descendants to have the opportunity to experience the same animal diversity that we now enjoy.

First Aid

first-aid.jpg First aid—caring for injured or ill persons until they can receive professional medical care—is an important skill for every Scout. With some knowledge of first aid, a Scout can provide immediate care and help to someone who is hurt or who becomes ill. First aid can help prevent infection and serious loss of blood. It could even save a limb or a life.

Fire Safety

The ability to use fire safely is essential to human survival. By earning this merit badge, Scouts will learn to uses fire safely and responsibly, how to prevent home fires, and how to handle fire safely, as well as burn prevention, and camping safety.

Fingerprinting

In earning the Fingerprinting merit badge, Scouts will learn about and use an important technique that is used by law enforcement officers, along with other materials like matching dental records and DNA sampling, to help identify amnesia victims, missing persons, abducted children, and others.

Farm Mechanics

From the mattock and hoe to the horse and mule, the cotton gin and reaper, the tractor and air seeder—this is the story of farm equipment. Today, most farms are mechanized and farmers can do most of their own maintenance work and make the adjustments needed on their many intricate farm implements.

Family Life

The family is the basic unit of society and is important to both individuals and communities. The world is rapidly changing, making today's society much more complex than ever before. As Scouts earn this merit badge, they will realize why it is important to know more about family life and how to strengthen their families.

Environmental Science

While earning the Environmental Science merit badge, Scouts will get a taste of what it is like to be an environmental scientist, making observations and carrying out experiments to investigate the natural world.

Entrepreneurship

By earning the Entrepreneurship merit badge, Scouts will learn about identifying opportunities, creating and evaluating business ideas, and exploring the feasibility (how doable it is) of an idea for a new business. They will also have the chance to fit everything together as they start and run their own business ventures.

Engineering

Engineers use both science and technology to turn ideas into reality, devising all sorts of things, ranging from a tiny, low-cost battery for your cell phone to a gigantic dam across the mighty Yangtze River in China.

Energy

Saving, producing, and using energy wisely will be critical to America's future. If we are to leave future generations with a world in which they can live as well or better than we have, SCouts and other potential leaders of tomorrow must begin the hard work of understanding energy and the vital role it will play in the future.

Emergency Preparedness

Scouts are often called upon to help because they know first aid and they know about the discipline and planning needed to react to an emergency situation. Earning this merit badge helps a Scout to be prepared by learning the actions that can be helpful and needed before, during, and after an emergency.

Electronics

Electronics is the science that controls the behavior of electrons so that some type of useful function is performed. Today, electronics is a fast-changing and exciting field.

Electricity

Electricity is a powerful and fascinating force of nature. As early as 600 b.c., observers of the physical world suspected that electricity existed but did not have a name for it. In fact, real progress in unraveling the mystery of electricity has come only within the last 250 years.

Drafting

Drafting is a highly refined form of drawing used to communicate ideas to engineers, architects, and craftspeople. In earning this badge, Scouts learn the importance of accuracy and simplicity in developing a drawing that shows precise details in a simple format.

Dog Care

The love and interdependence between humans and dogs has endured for thousands of years. Evidence suggests that dogs and humans started relying on each other thousands of years ago. Today, dogs are our coworkers and companions. They assist search-and-rescue teams, law enforcement officers, hunters, farmers, and people with disabilities. They also play with us and keep us company.

Disabilities Awareness

Look around at the Scouts in your unit, the members of your sports teams, and the kids in your class - you will see that each person has their own personalities, distinct interests and ideas, different physical features, and different strengths and needs.

Dentistry

Teeth do a lot more than just peek out from under that winning smile. They have all sorts of duties, and having healthy teeth will help a person to eat, speak, and look great.

Cycling

Since 1911, hundreds of thousands of Scouts have made the most of their two-wheel adventures by earning the Cycling merit badge. Whether you just got your first bicycle or have been cycling for years, you will learn more about your bike and what it can do by working on the requirements for this badge.

Crime Prevention

Preventing crime, which can be as simple as reducing the opportuntities for crime to occur, is far less costly than apprehending and bringing legal action against those who break the law and it helps save people from the anguish of being victims.

Cooking

The Cooking merit badge introduces principles of cooking that can be used both at home or in the outdoors. Scouts who earn this badge will learn about food safety, nutritional guidelines, meal planning, and methods of food preparation, and will review the variety of culinary (or cooking) careers available.

Composite Materials

Composites can be found just about everywhere: in airplanes and sports cars, golf clubs and guitars, boats and baseball bats, bathtubs and circuit boards, and even bridges. Composites make bicycles and skis lighter, kayaks and canoes stronger, houses warmer, and helmets tougher.

Communication

This clear and concise definition comes from the U.S. Department of Education: "Communication focuses on how people use messages to generate meanings within and across various contexts, cultures, channels, and media. The field of communication promotes the effective and ethical practice of human communication."

Collections

Collecting can be an educational and financially rewarding pastime: a collector must educate himself about a specific subject, be able to tell which items are worth preserving, how to catalog and organize his collection, and how to evaluate the value of items.

Coin Collecting

Coin collecting is one of the oldest of all hobbies. Hoards of ancient coins found in excavations indicate that coins were one of the first collectibles. From earliest times, people valued coins not only as a means of trading and storing wealth, but also as miniature works of art.

Climbing

Climbing is not a sport that requires tremendous muscular strength, it demands mental toughness and the willingness to practice hard to master a set of skills. The adventure of climbing can also provide a new way to enjoy the outdoors.

Citizenship in the World

Scouts who earn the Citizenship in the World merit badge will discover that they are already a citizen of the world. How good a citizen each person is depends on his willingness to understand and appreciate the values, traditions, and concerns of people in other countries.

Citizenship in the Nation

As Scouts fulfill the requirements for this merit badge, they will learn how to become active citizens are aware of and grateful for their liberties and rights, to participate in their governments and protect their freedom, helping to defend their country and standing up for individual rights on behalf of all its citizens.

Citizenship in the Community

A nation is a patchwork of communities that differ from each other and may be governed differently. But regardless of how local communities differ, they all have one point in common: In the United States, local government means self-government. Good citizens help to make decisions about their community through their elected local officials.

Moviemaking

Moviemaking is a way to tell stories visually through the art and science of motion picture photography.

Bugling

What would summer camp be without the bugle sounding "Reveille" in the morning and "Taps" in the evening? Camp and the bugle go together. The bugle is an ideal instrument for the beginning musician because most of the music uses only four notes. The ability to read music is not necessary, because the tunes are familiar and can be played ear.

Camping

Camping is one of the best-known methods of the Scouting movement. When he founded the Scouting movement in the early 1900s, Robert Baden-Powell encouraged every Scout to learn the art of living out-of-doors. He believed a young person able to take care of himself while camping would have the confidence to meet life's other challenges, too.

Canoeing

For several centuries, the canoe was a primary method of travel for explorers and settlers. Today, it remains an important part of the wilderness experience and an enjoyable leisure activity that teaches communication, teamwork, and physical fitness.

Surveying

While earning this merit badge, Scouts will discover how land is measured and how it is described so that others can know where boundary lines are. They will have a chance to use some fine measuring instruments, apply advanced mathematics, operate computing equipment, and create a survey map.

Stamp Collecting

The world's most popular hobby, stamp collecting is enjoyed by millions throughout the world. Through this hobby. you can experience history: postage stamps are like tiny windows that introduce the people of the world to the country's leaders, customs, history, products, and environment.

Sports

Millions of people participate in sports every year. For some the appeal is the close friendships that come with being part of a team. Some revel in the joy of victory and lessons of defeat. For some, the personal fitness is so important that exercise becomes a daily need. And still others desire the feeling of achievement, that feeling of measurable improvement that comes with dedication to a sport.

Space Exploration

Space is mysterious. We explore space for many reasons, not least because we don't know what is out there, it is vast, and humans are full of curiosity. Each time we send explorers into space, we learn something we didn't know before. We discover a little more of what is there.

Soil and Water Conservation

Conservation isn't just the responsibility of soil and plant scientists, hydrologists, wildlife managers, landowners, and the forest or mine owner alone. It is the duty of every person to learn more about the natural resources on which our lives depend so that we can help make sure that these resources are used intelligently and cared for properly.

Snow Sports

Skiing and snowboarding are the fastest and most thrilling ways to travel on foot in snow country. These sports also provide the physical benefits of fresh air, rhythmic action, and strenuous exercise. Many games and contests give snow sports variety and added rewards.

Small-Boat Sailing

Sailing is one of the most enjoyable pastimes on the open water. The quiet and peacefulness of the water can provide a pleasant break from everyday life. However, smooth sailing requires paying careful attention to safety.