Merit Badges

Everything in Merit Badges

• 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

• 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

• Sculpture Merit Badge

  Three requirements. Explain the safe use of a sculptor's tools and materials (1). Do two of three (2): a life-size clay head and then a small-scale figure, a plaster mold of a fruit or vegetable with a copy made in it, or a visit to a museum, gallery or studio with permission and approval. Then a career or a hobby (3).

  Elective Merit Badges Arts Hobbies Merit Badges Requirements

• Radio Merit Badge

  Requirement 8 offers five options as if they were equals: one is eight explanations and a walk, one is six hours of logged listening split between day and night, and one needs a fox hunt somebody else organises.

  Elective Merit Badges Communication Merit Badges 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

• Robotics Merit Badge

  Seven requirements, and the thing that matters most has no requirement number: the robot engineering notebook. Five separate steps write into it and 5(b) hands it to your counselor, so it cannot be written up afterwards. Requirement 4(a) also needs your counselor's approval before anything is built, and the constraints that design has to satisfy, including at least two degrees of freedom, are printed one line later in 4(b) rather than with the choice they govern.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements STEM

• Pulp and Paper Merit Badge

  Eight requirements. Most are explanations about paper and the industry that makes it. Three parts are hands-on: make a sheet of paper by hand (4), list 15 pulp or paper products in your home and share examples of 10 (6), and ONE visit or research project (7), done with your parent or guardian's and your counselor's approval. Requirement 8 is three papermaking careers, one looked into.

  Elective Merit Badges Conservation Merit Badges Requirements STEM

• Reading Merit Badge

  Seven requirements. Requirement 1 is a library tour and catalog search, 2 is finding books, and the long part is reading: four books of different types in 3, each with a review, a film comparison or a book talk; a how-to book and a project from it in 4; two sources about the world in 5. Requirement 6 is at least four hours of service, one of five kinds. Requirements 4 and 6 need counselor and parent or guardian permission first.

  Elective Merit Badges Communication Merit Badges Requirements Service Project

• Rifle Shooting Merit Badge

  Three requirements. Requirement 1 is ten explanations: safety, the law, hunting and where to shoot. Requirement 2 is the range: ONE of three options (modern cartridge rifle, air rifle, or muzzleloading rifle), done in full under a certified NRA rifle instructor and a certified range safety officer, ending with groups shot to a standard. Requirement 3 is a career or hobby.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety Shooting Sports

• Salesmanship Merit Badge

  Seven requirements. Two start with your counselor, who assigns the product and territory for your sales plan (3) and the product for your sales presentation (4). Requirement 5 is ONE real sale (unit fundraising, selling your services to neighbors, or retail), with a cost sheet kept. Requirement 6 is ONE interview, with a salesperson or a retail store owner. The rest are explanations and your qualifications for a sales career.

  Elective Merit Badges Business Merit Badges Requirements

• Scholarship Merit Badge

  Five requirements, four of them choices. A B average for a term or semester, or improved grades; TWO of four: an educational place, interviews with two professionals, a daily planner, or research methods; a note from your principal on your behavior, leadership and service in the past year; an extracurricular activity or a team project; and a 250- to 300-word report.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements

• Scouting Heritage Merit Badge

  Nine requirements about the history of Scouting. Several involve other people: researching the history of your unit, council, camp or lodge; interviewing at least three former Scouts over 40; and teaching an old-time Scouting game to other Scouts. Requirement 4 is a jamboree or high-adventure base with a journal, the National Scouting Museum, or a Scouting history exhibit or historian. Requirement 9 is a career or Scouting volunteer service.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements

• Shotgun Shooting Merit Badge

  Three requirements. Requirement 1 is ten explanations: safety, the law, hunting and shotgun sports. Requirement 2 is the range: ONE of two options (modern shotshell or muzzleloading shotgun), done in full under a certified NRA Shotgun instructor and a certified range safety officer, ending with a score at moving targets under the shooting skill rules. Requirement 3 is a career or hobby.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety Shooting Sports

• Signs, Signals, and Codes Merit Badge

  Ten requirements, each a code or signal to learn and use: Morse code, American Sign Language and semaphore (each with a six- to 10-word message), braille read and written, sound and silent Scout signals, nautical flags, symbols, traffic signs, map symbols and text symbols, and a secret code of your own. Requirement 7 is a trail of at least a mile laid out on a Scout outing, and requirement 8 is five signals each for THREE of five activities.

  Elective Merit Badges Communication Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Personal Fitness Merit Badge

  Twelve consecutive weeks, and the tests that measure them have to be taken before the first week starts. This is the badge that punishes starting in the middle.

  Eagle-Required Merit Badges Eagle Required Health Merit Badges Requirements

• Personal Management Merit Badge

  Ten requirements and sixty-three parts, but the one that matters is thirteen consecutive weeks, and the budget has to be written before those weeks start, not after.

  Eagle-Required Merit Badges Eagle Required Merit Badges Requirements

• Plant Science Merit Badge

  The largest badge here, and most of it will not apply to you. Requirement 8 is three options with a second choice nested inside each, so two answers decide your path. The fact that should decide the first one (whether you must grow something through a season) is never stated: Option B always does, Option A usually does, Option C never does.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Public Speaking Merit Badge

  Five requirements, five kinds of speaking: a three- to five-minute introduction of yourself to an audience such as your troop or class; a prepared talk with body language and visual aids; an impromptu talk of at least two minutes on a subject your counselor picks; an eight- to 10-minute researched speech; and parliamentary procedure, shown by leading a meeting or answering questions on the rules of order.

  Elective Merit Badges Communication Merit Badges Requirements

• Orienteering Merit Badge

  Ten requirements, and the long pole is requirement 7: three orienteering events run by other people, one of them cross-country, each needing a written report with the master map and control sheet from that day. Keep them on the day or the report cannot be written. Requirement 9 can be folded into requirement 8. The badge says so itself.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements Teaching

• Pets Merit Badge

  Five requirements, and the first one is four months long with approval required BEFORE it starts, so a pet you have kept for years earns nothing until the clock is started deliberately. Work done for other merit badges cannot be used here, which collides with Dog Care's own two-month clock, and the choice at requirement 4 is decided largely by what kind of animal you keep.

  Elective Merit Badges Animals Merit Badges Requirements

• Pioneering Merit Badge

  Nine requirements, and requirement 3 tells you its own prerequisites part by part, each of its three builds names the lashings and knots from requirement 2 that it needs. Requirement 9 is a full-size structure built by a group: spars, a site, a date, and the Guide to Safe Scouting height standards, which the requirements insist on twice.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements

• Programming Merit Badge

  Six requirements, and the fifth is three working programs in three different languages and three different development environments, with everything that decides whether a program passes stated once in the paragraph above the parts rather than in any of them. The three are chosen with the counselor's guidance, and "write or modify" allows modifying an existing program, which is a much smaller job than it first reads as.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Technology

• Nature Merit Badge

  Seven requirements, and the fourth is a choice of five fields from eight that decides how long the badge takes. Six are an afternoon of looking and identifying. Birds needs a month of records from a box or feeder you built, and Insects and Spiders can cost a season. Both prices sit two levels below the choice. Requirement 5 is written in the past tense about requirement 4, so Leave No Trace has to be read before the collecting starts, and the rules on collecting are numbered nowhere.

  Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements