Badges
Engineers use both science and technology to turn ideas into reality, devising all sorts of things, ranging from tiny, low-cost batteries for your cell phone to gigantic dams across the mighty Yangtze River in China.
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.
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.
After learning about the history and importance of exploration — like when Eagle Scout Paul Siple traveled to Antarctica or when Eagle Scout Neil Armstrong landed on the moon — you will prepare for and go on an actual expedition.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A natural fuel such as coal, oil, and natural gas (methane), formed in the geological past from the remains of living organisms.
Frogs are generally not seen but heard. In order to identify frogs and toads, you need to become familiar with their calls.
With abundant furbearer populations throughout most of Kansas, furharvesting opportunities abound. In fact, furbearers are probably one of our most underutilized natural resources, and the benefits of their harvest are numerous. Most furbearer species are responsible for various depredations or property damage, and furharvesting during the legal seasons acts as the primary means of furbearer population and damage control.
The Game Design merit badge teaches planning and critical-thinking skills while introducing Scouts to an industry that’s bigger than Hollywood.
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.
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.
The word geocache is a combination of "geo," which means "earth," and "cache," which means "a hiding place." Geocaching describes a hiding place on planet Earth - a hiding place you can find using a GPS unit. A GPS (Global Positioning System) unit is an electronic tool that shows you where to go based on information it gets from satellites in space.