Elective Merit Badges

Topics

• Skating Merit Badge

  Two requirements, and the second is a choice between four options that share no work at all. Ice skating is fourteen steps, roller skating thirteen, in-line skating sixteen, and skateboarding fourteen with a choice of three trick families out of five inside it. Between forty six and fifty two of this badge's seventy steps belong to an option nobody will do, and which option to take is settled by the rink, pavement or skatepark you can actually reach.

  Elective Merit Badges Health Merit Badges Requirements Safety

• Railroading Merit Badge

  Seven requirements, of which six are reading and explaining at a table and the seventh is the only one that costs time or money. Requirement 7's two options are named misleadingly: Model Railroading offers two choices that need nothing but a pencil, while Railfanning has two of its four requiring purchased tickets. Requirement 4 asks for nine safety items twice and means two different lists, and one option inside requirement 7 is requirement 2 carried out for real.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety

• Landscape Architecture Merit Badge

  Five requirements, three of which need permission from somebody who does not know you yet: a landscape architect for the design plan in requirement 1, the appropriate authority for the site in requirement 4, and a counselor or nursery plus an audience for requirement 3. Requirement 4(b) asks where water stands for a longer period, which is not visible on a dry day, and requirement 4(a) tells you to copy your drawing twice before marking it, which is easy to read past and impossible to undo.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Teaching

• Bugling Merit Badge

  Six requirements, of which five are a week of work and the sixth is three months of serving as your troop's bugler. That term is a troop appointment, so the clock starts when somebody gives you the job rather than when you decide to earn the badge. Bugler counts as a position of responsibility toward Star and Life but not toward Eagle, the instrument may be a trumpet or a cornet rather than a bugle, and the ten calls chosen in requirement 3 are the ten that requirement 4 makes you explain.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Rank Requirements

• Rowing Merit Badge

  Nine requirements, of which requirement 2 names four others by number and gates all of them: the Scouting America swimmer test must be passed before requirements 4, 5, 6 and 7. Rowing is the aquatics badge that does not print that test, so what it asks for is found elsewhere. Requirements 1, 3, 8 and 9 are seventeen dry steps the gate does not touch, requirement 4 offers an afternoon or a competitive season, and two of its five knots appear nowhere else in Scouting.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements Safety

• Dentistry Merit Badge

  Seven requirements, and the first one needs dental radiographs that only a dentist can supply, while the requirement that arranges a dentist is numbered third. One appointment can carry four requirements if it is booked that way, and requirement 3 hides the instruction that decides what the visit contains in its second sentence, where it expires the moment you arrive. Two of requirement 6's five options are requirement 2 written up.

  Elective Merit Badges Health Merit Badges Requirements

• Disabilities Awareness Merit Badge

  Seven requirements, and requirement 4 prints the same four places under both of its options, so the choice is not where you go but what you look for: physical access, or how a place accommodates invisible disabilities. Only one of the two needs a member of staff to stop and talk to you. Requirement 5 hides a whole requirement above its menu, and its most research heavy option ends with a presentation nobody notices in the final clause.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Special Needs Teaching

• Archaeology Merit Badge

  Eleven requirements, of which nine are desk work and the last two cannot be done without a qualified archaeologist or instructor agreeing to work with you. The definition of who counts is buried in a note under requirement 10(b) and is far wider than the word archaeologist suggests. Requirement 4 is one line of text asking for twenty five answers, requirement 7 hides a week long wait inside its cheapest option, and requirements 2 and 3 are the vocabulary that requirements 10 and 4 are marked in.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Teaching

• American Labor Merit Badge

  Nine requirements, and the first one is not the warm-up it looks like: requirement 2(b) names it by number and asks you to take that list of eight worker concerns to a union and ask which matter most. Requirement 7 then draws on the same work without naming it. Requirement 2 also carries its own fallback, contacting an organization online, so no union office needs to be within reach, and requirement 3 is twelve definitions printed as a single conversation.

  Elective Merit Badges Citizenship Merit Badges Requirements

• American Cultures Merit Badge

  Five requirements, and the sentence that governs the first three is not one of them: an unnumbered note above requirement 1 tells you to choose three groups, one of them your own, and use them for requirements 1, 2 and 3. That choice also decides whether requirement 1 is possible, because four of its five options need access to a community and only one does not. Requirement 4 then asks about a different three, on a different list of categories.

  Elective Merit Badges Citizenship Merit Badges Requirements Teaching

• Cybersecurity Merit Badge

  Nine requirements, and the one that matters most is easy to throw away: 4(f) asks you to list your own cyber attack surface, and two later options are exactly the work of acting on that list, though the badge never connects them. Requirement 5(c) offers nine options and needs three, several of which are the same evening. One option needs the system owner's permission and has a legal edge. Two of the four cryptography routes need another person to take part.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety STEM

• Home Repairs Merit Badge

  Requirement 1 is the only part everybody does. After that this badge is five menus and a fork: fourteen jobs chosen out of thirty-two, which is 4,704,000 different ways to earn it. About a dozen of the options need your home to supply the fault first, several pay for each other if picked together, three are closed in winter, and requirement 5 hides a compulsory task, shutting off the main water, in what looks like a menu heading.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety

• Model Design and Building Merit Badge

  Six requirements, and the second one you read tells you to choose from the fourth: requirement 3 selects a subject from requirement 4, so the real decision happens a requirement before the options appear. The five scales differ by a factor of six and only one may be renegotiated, the printed book gets every metric conversion wrong, requirement 5 is a whole second model, and whether requirement 5 must actually be built is a question its own lettered parts do not answer.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety

• Photography Merit Badge

  Eight requirements, and the one that shapes everything is requirement 7: it names requirements 4, 5 and 6 by number in order to forbid reusing their photographs. That makes this badge fifteen to nineteen distinct images rather than the handful it looks like, and the badge never says so. Requirement 7 also hides an approval in the middle, on the plan and before the shooting, and requirement 4 is simply requirement 2 demonstrated with a camera.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety

• Whitewater Merit Badge

  Twelve requirements, and the third is a gate over the other nine: earn the Canoeing merit badge if you are in a canoe, or the Kayaking merit badge if you are in a kayak, before doing requirements 4 through 12. That one answer also decides requirement 4's option and requirement 7, and if you choose a tandem canoe, it doubles requirement 10.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Scuba Diving Merit Badge

  Six requirements, and two of them are whole other qualifications: the Swimming merit badge, which gates requirements 3 to 6, and an Open Water Diver certification earned outside Scouting. The other four are conversations. Do not judge this badge by its length.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Veterinary Medicine Merit Badge

  Seven requirements built round two catalogues. Requirements 1 and 2 list eleven kinds of veterinary work; requirements 4, 6 and 7 each pick from those lists by name. Nothing in this badge asks you to handle an animal.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements

• Snow Sports Merit Badge

  Requirements 4 and 5 both say "the option you choose in requirement 7", so the choice printed seventh has to be made fourth. And only two of the four options state an adaptive alternative.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Reptile and Amphibian Study Merit Badge

  Ten requirements, and the one that decides the shape of the badge is requirement 8: a month with an animal in your own custody, or three months of weekly visits to one in somebody else's. The prohibitions that govern it (no venomous reptiles, no protected species, no collecting in most parks) are in a standing note above the requirements rather than in any numbered one.

  Elective Merit Badges Animals Conservation Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Safety Merit Badge

  Nine requirements, of which four are jobs done at home with an adult and then reviewed with the counselor: a hazard inspection, a fire-escape plan with an actual drill, a family emergency plan with a supplies kit, and a security inspection. Two of the four are the same walk round the same building, and all three checklists the badge names can be replaced by one your counselor approves.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety

• Search and Rescue Merit Badge

  Eight requirements, seven of which are explained to a counselor and one of which, requirement 7, is a practice search run with a team of Scouts, friends or family, in five parts the requirement text puts in order itself. A standing note that is not a numbered requirement forbids youth members from flying in aircraft on a SAR mission, and requirement 3(d) uses a term requirement 6(b) has not defined yet.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Small-Boat Sailing Merit Badge

  Nine requirements, three gates. The swimmer test stands in front of everything but requirement 1; requirement 4 says "before going afloat" and requirement 5 says the wind work comes before setting sail, both of which point at the ten-part requirement 6. And the boat itself has to qualify: capsizable, able to sail to windward, and not a sailboard.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Surveying Merit Badge

  Eight requirements, and two of them are the same afternoon: requirement 4 levels from the corner markers set up for requirement 2, so both need the counselor's five-sided lot still standing, while requirement 3, numbered between them, is map drawing done indoors afterwards. The counselor supplies the site and the instruments, so nothing can start until a field session is arranged, and requirement 5 needs a property approved and then a deed fetched from a courthouse.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Water Sports Merit Badge

  Six requirements and one of them is a whole day behind a boat. Requirements 1 and 2 are open to anybody; the swimmer test at requirement 3 gates 4 through 6; and 4, 5 and 6 all need a boat, a driver and an observer, so they are one session rather than three.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Wilderness Survival Merit Badge

  Ten requirements, and the one that decides how long the badge takes is requirement 5(e): improvise a natural shelter and spend a night in it. That is a campout, a permitted site and a forecast, buried as the fifth letter of the fifth requirement. Requirement 6 (three fires by three methods, none of them matches) is the other one that costs more than it reads.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements