Orienteering Merit Badge

Start the badge the right way Milestone

Meet your unit leader, get a counselor and a signed blue card before working with them. That process is the same for every badge and is set out on its own page.

Work to the requirements in force when you start Document

These requirements are republished yearly. A Scout who has already begun may finish under the ones they started with.

Usually comes after Start the badge the right way.

Merit badge requirements are republished annually. A Scout beginning work uses the requirements as they stand then; a Scout already working may finish under the ones they started with. Guide to Advancement 7.0.4.3 governs which applies. This page records the date its copy was read. Check it against the official page before relying on it.

1. First aid for the trail, and why you must know the local plants and animals Requirement

Two things in one requirement. The first-aid list is the usual outdoor one; the second half asks for a reason rather than an identification.

Usually comes after Work to the requirements in force when you start.

2. Explain what orienteering is Requirement

One sentence of a requirement, and the only purely definitional one on the badge.

3. The compass: how it works, and following a bearing in the field Requirement

Two parts, and the second is done outdoors rather than at a table.

3(a). How a compass works, and what makes an orienteering compass different Task

The mechanism, then the features specific to the orienteering pattern: the baseplate, the housing, the lines.

3(b). Take a bearing and follow it, in the field Task

In the field is in the requirement. Taking a bearing on a table answers half of it.

4. The map: terrain, symbols, declination, distance and orientation Often forgotten Requirement

Six parts and the largest requirement on the badge. Two of them need you to be outdoors with the map in your hand.

4(a). Five terrain features: named on the map AND found in the field Often forgotten Task

Both, which means this cannot be finished indoors. Pointing at a re-entrant on paper is not the same as standing in one.

4(b). Ten symbols on a topographic map Task

Pointed out and named.

4(c). Declination, and why it matters when map and compass work together Task

The meaning and the consequence. This is the one that quietly ruins a bearing over distance.

4(d). Show a topographic map with magnetic north-south lines Task

A map that has them, produced. Not every map does, which is the point.

4(e). Measure distance on a map with an orienteering compass Task

Using the scales on the baseplate, which is what they are for.

4(f). Orient a map using a compass Task

The habit everything else depends on.

5. Set a 100-metre pace course and learn your own numbers Often forgotten Requirement

Walking pace and running pace, both, over a course you set up yourself, plus why pace counting matters. Your numbers are yours; nobody else's are any use to you.

6. Control descriptions, and the vocabulary of the sport Requirement

Three parts. The third is the technique vocabulary that separates finding controls from wandering between them.

6(a). Twenty international control description symbols, and what each means Often forgotten Task

Twenty, identified and explained. This is the largest piece of rote learning on the badge.

6(b). Show a control description sheet and explain what is on it Task

A real sheet, explained. Worth keeping one from an event. See requirement 7(b).

6(c). The technique vocabulary, and when you would use each Often forgotten Task

Attack point, collecting feature, catching feature, aiming off, contouring, reading ahead, handrail, relocation, and rough against fine orienteering. Nine terms, each with an occasion attached.

7. Three events, and a written report after each one Often forgotten Requirement

The long pole of the badge: three occasions run by other people, one of them a cross-country course, each followed by a four-part report. Read 7(b) before the first event.

Usually comes after Work to the requirements in force when you start.

7(a). Take part in three events, one of them cross-country Often forgotten Event

Three dates in somebody else's calendar. Orienteering is an individual sport, but Youth Protection means the buddy system applies. This may be completed in pairs or groups.

Three events run by other people, one of them a cross-country course. This is the long pole of the badge: nothing here waits on any other requirement, and finding three dates is what decides how long the badge takes. Start looking on day one.

7(b). A four-part report after each event, and one part must be kept on the day Often forgotten Task

The master map and control description sheet, your route, how you would improve your time between controls, and your major weaknesses with what you would do about them. The first of those cannot be reconstructed at home.

Read this before your first event, not after it. One of the four things the report must contain is a copy of the master map and control description sheet from that event, and if you hand them back at the finish and go home, that report cannot be written later. Keep them on the day, every day.

8. Set up a course, cross-country or score Often forgotten Decision

The badge says do ONE. Both need a master map and a control description sheet prepared; the difference is five controls over 2,000 metres against twelve controls with point values and a clock.

8(a). A cross-country course: 2,000 metres, five controls Optional May not apply Task

At least that long and at least that many, with the master map and control description sheet prepared.

You have not answered "Requirement 8: which course will you set up?" yet.

8(b). A score course: twelve controls, point values, 60 minutes Optional May not apply Task

At least twelve control points with a point value set for each, and a time limit of at least an hour, with the master map and control description sheet prepared.

You have not answered "Requirement 8: which course will you set up?" yet.

9. Act as an official, and the badge says this can be at your own event Often forgotten Requirement

At an orienteering event, and the requirement itself allows this to be the running of the course you set up for requirement 8. Plan the two together and it is one occasion.

10. Teach orienteering to your patrol, troop or crew Requirement

The last requirement, and the one that turns everything above into something you can pass on.

Counselor signs it off Milestone

The completion date is the date you met the requirements, not the date of the signature.

Usually comes after 10. Teach orienteering to your patrol, troop or crew.