Geology Merit Badge

Read requirement 5 before you do requirement 4

Requirement 5 has two parts and they are not the same kind of thing.

• 5(a): discuss the importance of the Leave No Trace Seven Principles and the Outdoor Code as they relate to the study of geology.
• 5(b): explain how you practiced them *"while traveling in natural areas and while collecting rock and fossil specimens for this merit badge."* 5(b) is retrospective. It is asking about conduct during work that, if you follow the numbering, is already finished by the time you read it. So do 5(a) first, before requirement 4. Have the conversation about what the principles mean while there is still fieldwork ahead of you, and 5(b) becomes a description of what you actually did rather than an attempt to remember whether you did it.

Requirement 5(b) assumes fieldwork that Option B does not have

Options A, C and D all put you outdoors or in front of specimens:

• A visits a stream (4(A)(5)).
• C collects or identifies rocks and minerals (4(C)(3)) and may visit a mine or quarry (4(C)(5)(a)).
• D collects or identifies fossils (4(D)(5)) and may visit an outcrop (4(D)(6)(c)). Option B, Energy Resources, has no collecting in it at all. Its five parts are a list, a discussion of source rock and traps, an explanation of exploration methods, a subsurface structure map, and a choice between building a display and visiting a drilling rig. That is a perfectly good option. But requirement 5(b) then asks how you practised Leave No Trace while collecting specimens, and a Scout who took Option B has no collecting to describe. Worth raising with your counselor early rather than discovering at the end.

Two options need your counselor before you can start

Option A is the only option with no inner choice, five steps straight through, but it is also the most dependent on somebody else handing you materials. Options C and D are self-starting.

The same choice, drawn two different ways

A small thing that shows how these requirements are written rather than engineered. "Collect 10, or identify 15 with your counselor's assistance" appears twice:

• In Option C it is requirement 4(C)(3), split into **two lettered sub-requirements**, (a) and (b).
• In Option D it is requirement 4(D)(5), written as one sentence with an "OR" in the middle. Same choice, same effect, two shapes. This plan draws C's as two steps and D's as one, because that is what the requirements do.

Requirement 3 needs a map you may not have yet

Requirement 3 asks you to review a geologic map "of your area or an area approved by your counselor". Finding one is usually easy, state geological surveys publish them, but it is a thing to obtain rather than a thing to know, so start looking before the session where you plan to discuss it.

What this page is

The Geology merit badge, drawn so requirement 5's backward reach and the four options' very different starting costs are visible before you choose. It is not a copy of the requirements: each step is a short label with a link to the official requirements, which are what actually governs and which change from year to year.