Merit Badges

Woodwork Merit Badge

Seven requirements. Safety, first aid and the Totin' Chip; how timber becomes lumber, and six labelled wood blocks; tool care and sharpening two tools; something useful made with a saw, plane, hammer, brace and bit; your own project, with drawings, a materials list, and its time and cost tracked; TWO of five more projects or a service; and a talk with a cabinetmaker or finish carpenter.

Elective Merit Badges Hobbies 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

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

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

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

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

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