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I've been working on a special summer session of our normal merit badge classes here at the museum. I ran into some issues this past week with scouts wanting to take the Personal Management class that is this Saturday. Unfortunately they had to pull out here at the last second because their Scoutmasters refused to give them a blue card. The rational of the Scoutmasters happen to be that the boys were "too young" to take the merit badge.
The BSA policy is that all boys who are registered members of the Boy Scouts of America and are in the Boy Scout program can take any merit badge they want whenever they want. These Scoutmasters are indirect contradiction to BSA policy and unfortunatley the parents are unwilling to go against the wishes of their son's Scoutmaster.
I think we need to make merit badges a key point in the training of Adult Leaders. Otherwise, we need to find a way to make sure Scoutmasters cannot deny the Scout the opportunity to take a merit badge.
I believe a Scoutmaster should have the right to voice his disapproval, but he should not be allowed to refuse a blue card to a Scout wishing to take any merit badge.
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Web & Database Development: Grow your knowledge of how websites really happen and how databases support the web and other applications. Learn about programming languages used, development principals and the career opportunities in this field.
Video Game Design: Learn the ins and outs of this fast growing career. Gain an understanding of the game development process and tools used and come to understand how the concepts are used in applications beyond games.
Security & Networks: Develop an understanding of how digital networks are created and how they support the world wide web and private networks. Learn how security is established to protect the network from spam, viruses, and hacking.
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Experience the fun of exploring the history of Scouting – both nationally and in your own community. Explore the lives of Scouting’s founders, interact with long-time Scouters in your community and learn about your unit’s history and the evolution of Scout equipment and programs.
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Learn about the ancient and modern history of cryptography and codes and how they have been used in government, politics and business. Learn how to build and codes and how they are used in modern-day security.
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Baden-Powell had a patent on a kite?? Was he having fun or putting it to work? You can do both in this merit badge for Kiting. Design, build and fly your own kites. Learn about the concepts of flight, the many types of kites (indoor, giant, miniature, and modern sport kites) and new uses for kites like kite surfing and kites used as a “green” power source.
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Learn about the history of disk sports and how to participate in the various disk sport disciplines of Disk Golf, Ultimate, and Freestyle.
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Learn the skills necessary to effectively and safely use the internet. This badge would cover internet safety, internet terms, online shopping, email usage, the basics of web development, social networks and blogs.
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Leadership across all cultures, across millennia, has employed he art of storytelling to transmit tradition, values and vision. Today, storytelling is said to be the "secret language of business leadership." Storytelling requires the use of imagination, memory, insight, and creative joining of words, meaning with sound for a meaningful presentation to occur. Therefore, Storytelling enriches not only the literacy development but also the mental and social development of the young scout and fits well all scouting objectives. The storytelling merit badge would serve as a capstone to Communicant, Public Speaking and Debate badges.
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Leadership frequently requires effective use of persuasive reasoning, oftentimes in an extemporaneous setting against an opposing point of view. Learn to think and communicate critically and effectively in a formal, organized manner using the techniques and tools of formal debate. To be effective in debate, one must “be prepared”, be “mentally awake”. This merit badge builds on the skills of the Communications and Public Speaking merit badges to offer the scout additional opportunities to grow in confidence and presence in front of others.
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The Boy Scout mission is “to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes.” And while we educate Scouts in values via the Scout Law, nowhere in Boy Scout advancements do we offer the opportunity to explore what it means to “Be Prepared” in the area of ethical or moral decision making.
In completing this badge, Scouts would learn about ethics in real life via discussions and role playing realistic, everyday situations to help them model ethical decision making. This program is currently in place for Patrol Leaders in the Talakto District of the Greater Alabama Council.
Submitted on behalf of John W Shriver, Troop 351, , Greater Alabama Council
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Being a service profession, pharmacy is a great match for Scouts. It involves helping people at all times and in recent years a number of national surveys have concluded that pharmacists are the most trusted professionals. The basic premise is that introduction to the profession and those who use its knowledge and skills on a daily basis will recruit some to this career or at least produce more informed patients who make better use of medications throughout their lives.
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Loss, death and grief are a normal part of the circle of life. Boy Scouts offers a safe and comfortable environment where boys can begin to learn, talk and ask questions about the often confusing life journey.
Research shows that there are gender differences in the ways boys and girls cope with grief. However, studies have also proven that it is healthy for both boys and girls to communicate about their grief feelings. This merit badge should also be helpful to the boys in helping them better communicate about grief feelings when they experience them in life.
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Bob Lucas 804-270-1026 is not a volunteer just a citizen, he was watching the news where Brian Williams was talking about the Hispanic youth joining. He thought of a way to try and reach out to them. He was thinking that a lot of these kids don't speak English and maybe there could be a merit badge for learning our language.
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Recently, the Innovation and Strategy Group received a request from the Action Sports Association, a non-profit organization focusing on increasing awareness, education, promoting activities and preserving awareness for the action sports industry especially, skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, and bmx biking. The request entailed the consideration of a partnership with the ASA to develop a skateboarding merit badge.
While our organization does have a skating merit badge, currently skateboarding is not an option for our youth. The idea is to explore the possibility for the inclusion of skateboarding in the skating merit badge or the creation of a new, separate skateboarding merit badge. If pursued, would a skateboarding merit badge assist in attracting and retaining youth in our program?
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Idea from: James Kirby Jr., Kirby Welding Company
A merit badge for welding will help expose many of the young men to an opportunity to learn a skill trade that can last a lifetime.
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Andrew Burns emailed this request to the 100th Anniversary mailbox
"Is there anyway we could make new meritbadges because i would like to have a dirt bike merit badge or a motor bike merit badge because those are really fun activities"
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Have a Martial Arts merit badge added to the merit badge lists for Boy Scouts.
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