Safety

Firem'n Chit

The chit that gives a Scout the right to carry matches and lighters and build campfires. Eight responsibilities shown to your Scout leader: the handbook's rules, permits, Leave No Trace and a cleared area, safe storage, never leaving a fire, water or a shovel at hand, the cold-out test, and the codes behind it all.

Awards and Recognitions Awards Outdoors Requirements Safety

Paul Bunyan Award

The step beyond the Totin' Chip: know the hazards and first aid for woods tools, earn the Totin' Chip and help someone else earn it, learn nine tools and use four, then spend at least two supervised hours on a conservation project with them.

Awards and Recognitions Awards Conservation Outdoors Requirements Safety Teaching

Totin' Chip

The card that gives a Scout the right to carry and use woods tools. Six responsibilities shown to your Scout leader: learn the handbook's rules, handle knife, ax and saw properly, treat them as tools, keep others safe, cut only with permission, and live by the Outdoor Code. It can be taken away.

Awards and Recognitions Awards Outdoors Requirements Safety

Weather Merit Badge

Twelve requirements, nine of them explanations and drawings. Three take arranging: a week-long weather log from an instrument you make, or a visit to a weather professional; a five-minute safety talk to a group, with the outline approved first; and discussing the safety rules with your family.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements Safety STEM

Wood Carving Merit Badge

Seven requirements. Safety and first aid; the Totin' Chip and the Safety Checklist for Carving; the care and use of five carving tools and of sharpening devices; four basic cuts shown on scrap wood or a project; why different woods suit different projects; then two carvings, one in the round and one low-relief or chip carving, with the wood for each explained in requirement 5.

Elective Merit Badges Arts Hobbies Merit Badges Requirements Safety

Space Exploration Merit Badge

Eight requirements. The one with a launch day is requirement 3: build, launch and recover a model rocket, then launch again for a specific objective, to the National Association of Rocketry safety code. Two more are things you make: a collector's card and a design for an inhabited base. Requirements 5 and 6 are choices.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety STEM

Sports Merit Badge

Six requirements. The long one is requirement 5: two sports for a season (or three months), with a personal training program, a chart kept throughout, and the completed chart shared with your counselor at the end. Requirement 4 is choosing the two sports and planning that season with your counselor first. Requirements 1 to 3 are safety, first aid, health and sportsmanship, and 6 is a career or a hobby.

Elective Merit Badges Health Merit Badges Requirements Safety

Traffic Safety Merit Badge

Eight requirements. Most are explanations: impaired, distracted and fatigued driving, vehicle safety features, traffic law, road design and signs, and sharing the road. Requirement 3 is hands-on, with adult supervision and a vehicle you have access to: lights, wipers, tires, a flat tire and tire sealant, and stopping distances marked off away from traffic. Requirement 7 is an interview, a pledge or an event you organize.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety

Truck Transportation Merit Badge

Ten requirements, mostly lists and explanations: truck lines in your town, trucks in commerce and the supply chain, gasoline and diesel engines, how a trucking company is organized, government agencies, kinds of trucks and trucking terms. Requirement 4 is a visit to a truck terminal, including a talk with a professional truck driver about safety. Requirement 8 is a written plan for shipping 500 pounds of freight 500 miles within three days.

Elective Merit Badges Business Merit Badges Requirements Safety

Welding Merit Badge

Seven requirements. Hazards and first aid (1), safety data sheets, safety gear worn and equipment care (2), welding terms (3), cutting methods (4), and two welding processes with one set up and its area approved by your counselor (5). Only after 1 through 5 come the six welds of requirement 6, on the equipment prepared in 5(b), with your counselor inspecting the T and lap joints before they are welded. Then careers and the American Welding Society (7).

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety STEM

Wildland Fire Management Merit Badge

Eleven requirements, most of them discussions. Three take arranging: a demonstration with three wildland fire hand tools, a choice of five ways to take action that each need a place or a person, and a suppression-tactics exercise that reuses the diagram from requirement 5(c).

Elective Merit Badges Conservation Merit Badges Outdoors Requirements Safety

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nuclear Science Merit Badge

Eight requirements. Radiation and basic nuclear science are explained, with 3-D models of three isotopes. Then four choices: a visit to a scientist or a study of three accelerators; TWO of three classic experiments (electroscope, cloud chamber, half-life); ONE of three radiation safety activities; and a fission drawing with a mousetrap reactor or a visit to a reactor, followed by a discussion of nuclear electricity. Adults handle any radioactive materials.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety STEM

Painting Merit Badge

Eight requirements. The long ones are 3, preparing and painting two different surfaces with patching or caulking, primers and topcoats (your counselor must preapprove the projects), and 4, an item painted in harmonizing colors chosen with the pamphlet's color wheel. The rest explain safety, coatings and finishes, equipment care (shown), ladders and protective equipment, and environmental and health issues. Requirement 8 is a career or a hobby.

Elective Merit Badges Arts 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

Plumbing Merit Badge

Seven requirements. Health, local regulations and safety precautions for home repairs; drawings of the water supply and drainage systems of a house; five plumber's tools shown; plumbing terms; the kinds of pipe; then FOUR of seven hands-on tasks, each under the supervision of a knowledgeable adult; and a career in plumbing.

Elective Merit Badges Merit Badges Requirements Safety STEM

Leatherwork Merit Badge

Five requirements. Requirement 1 is the hazards of leatherwork tools and materials, and first aid shown for injuries and illnesses from working with leather. Requirement 2 explains leather and its kinds. Requirement 3 is one or more leather articles using at least five of eight steps, and 4 is a braided or plaited article. Requirement 5 is ONE of: the commercial tanning process, tanning a small skin, caring for leather articles, or visiting a leather business.

Elective Merit Badges Arts Hobbies 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

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