This is probably one of the best sites for map reading I have ever seen. Lots of downloadable powerpoints. The author also covers the use of the military compass (brings back old memories).

Scouting in my view does not adequately cover land navigation and compass work. Some time ago it was decided that scouting would cover orienteering, not map & compass. There is a distinct difference.  Orienteering is more map/terrain reading oriented. Orienteering itself is a spirited game where the objective is to get to relatively close control markers as fast as possible (compass work is not a big part of it). Orienteering is a lot of fun and there is challenge and map work involved, so I understand the switch. Furthermore, there really is very little time to cover map & compass in much more detail and by in large, most scouts don’t go out on remote, off trail, wilderness backcountry excursions. Those few that do have acquired these skills somehow. I’d like to see kids really learn about declination diagrams and the use of the protractor to develop azimuths and plot coordinates. Frankly, I think most scouts want to be better at compass use then they are. 

 http://landnavigation.org/

I had posted this previously - I will keep it up as it covers the more familar plastic compass. This is not mine, it came from someplace on the web. It is a start but not that good (yet). Take it and run with it if it helps. Send me back an improved version. I’m sure others can use.

map-and-compass.ppt

Here’s a helpful doc from the Purdue Outing Club:

orienteer.doc

Dubbed the best hike in the northeast by many guidebooks, I could easily agree. This is a great hike to take fresh scouts on and get them bitten by the scouting/outdoorsmen bug. Spectacular views, the ability to get above the tree line, a great hike up past numerous waterfalls (take the Falling Water Trail up). I love it.  It is also nice because from Boston, it is one of the closer hikes in the Whites. It is right up Rt.93 in Franconia Notch. 

I highly recommend this hike to all scouts. You have to do this one.

Here is a nice handout someone has done on the hike (from “NHvacationhomes” all I can tell to credit properly) as well as a park map with trails:

mountlafayette.pdf

franconiahikingfinal.pdf

Here’s another copy of the basic map with the traditional route (from Dartmouth Outing Club). This is where the kids also learn that what looks like a short distance on a map is actually quite long when you factor in the contour lines! What goes up must come down. The last 1/3 of this hike from the hut down is nice but very long. Note also the trail across the top ridge is the AT. The picture above is actually Mt. Lincoln, I have yet to take a good dramatic picture of Lafayette.

This is a great hike, either in April to watch (or participate in) skiing, late July to still see snow, the fall to get the colors, or winter to take in a great winter hike. Views are great, it is a beautiful area, and if you plan properly, this is really a safe hike. Able bodied 7-8 year olds can handle the warm weather hike (all the way up the ravine to the top of Mt. Washington and back down to Pinkham Notch). In the summer, there is a large waterfall in the center of the ravine. You can hike up the ravine, hike to the top of Mt. Washington (my recommendation is the Crawford Path (the AT) up the back side), hike back down (recommendation: the Boott Spur is a great hike) and drive back to Boston in one day. Leave early (5am), start heading home around 4pm, stop for pizza with the kids (and feel your limbs aching), and be home by 8-9 or so.

 More on this hike when I have time.

This is a great trip. After we went, we found out there is a small scout camp nearby. Reservations are required by January I think and people compete for spaces. On our way back, we drove up through Amish country which was also very interesting. I thought to go over to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house in western PA, but it was a little too far away. There is a large cave system nearby that I discuss in another post.

Link to below: http://www.yaac-bsa.org/activities/gettysburg/gettysburg.htm

Gettysburg Heritage Trails Program

The York-Adams Area Council, the National Park Service, and the Gettysburg National Military Park/Eisenhower National Historic Site are proud to offer Scouting groups the opportunity to participate in the Gettysburg Heritage Trails program, which includes a stop at the Visitor Center/National Cemetery, two hiking trails through the battlefield at Gettysburg, a walking tour of historic downtown Gettysburg and a tour of the Eisenhower National Historic Site.

The National Park Service and the York-Adams Area Council have published a trail guide for each of these five trails and tours (the current edition was revised in June 2002, 14th edition). Trail guides are available at the Gettysburg National Military Park or from the York-Adams Area Council Scout Shop and cost $1.00 per guide. The five program elements are: 1) The Visitor Center/National Cemetery; 2) The Billy Yank Trail; 3) The Johnny Reb trail; 4) The Eisenhower National Historic Site; 5) The Historic Gettysburg Trail.

The trail guides are designed to be quite comprehensive and provide all of the information you should need concerning the trails programs, maps, requirements, etc.  The trail guides are the primary source of information for participants in these programs, as the council does not make available any other printed or on-line materials regarding these programs.  Our Scout Shop can accept credit card orders for trail guides by calling 800-569-5197 (outside York) or you can now order these materials on-line.

Program Descriptions

Visitor Center/National Cemetery and Eisenhower sections are question and answer exercises, as outlined in the trail guide.  The trail hikes through the battlefield are designed to give participants a soldier’s perspective on what happened on the battlefield.

The Historic Gettysburg Trail is a walk through the downtown area to help visitors imagine what it was like to live in Gettysburg in July 1863.  This trail is approximately three miles and takes 2-3 hours to complete.

There are fees associated with the Electric Map and Cyclorama programs, which are included in the activities spelled out in the trail guide.  Please call the park at (717) 334-1124 for pricing and reservations.

Camping At Gettysburg National Military Park

Tent camping is available at the McMillan’s Woods area of the park and reservations can be made through the park service. For detailed information regarding the reservation procedures and site availability at McMillan’s Wood, please visit the Gettysburg National Military Park’s website using this link - http://www.nps.gov/gett/camp.htm.

Groups camping at McMillan’s Woods can arrange for showers at the Gettysburg YWCA, 909 Fairfield Road, for a nominal fee of $1 per person.  Groups need to call the YWCA at least one day in advance to make arrangements (717) 334-9171. 

Additional information about Gettysburg National Military Park is also available through the U.S. National Park Service at http://www.nps.gov/gett.  A terrific map of the battlefield and the town of Gettysburg is available on the National Park Service’s web site. More views of the Gettysburg Battlefield. 

At the site of Chamberlain’s bayonnet charge on Little Round top:

One of the best scouting activities in our area is Orienteering. One of the best local spots for anything scout related is Nobscot Scout Reservation (in Sudbury, MA). Below is a note to our kids on what to expect. I thought it might be useful if you need anything like this. We have also taken the scouts here and introduced them to Geocaching - a highly recommended activity that the kids really liked. I’ll spend more time on this later.

Here is a printout I made of the geocaches in Nobscot: nobscot-geocaches.doc

Here is a topo map I put together for Nobscot (It may not be very useful at this scale):

nobscot-top-map.ppt

Here is the park map for Nobscot: nobscotmap.pdf

The local Orienteering club, NEOC, has a scout-o event here every October (you must register by August, watch the Council website to see when the invitations go out). NEOC also has a similar event in the spring at Hale Reservation in Westwood, MA, but it is signficiantly less challenging.

This is an article on the Nobscot Scout-O that was recently in Scouting magazine:

scout-o-article-sept07.docx and link if this Word07 does not open:

http://www.scoutingmagazine.org/issues/0709/a-orie.html

Orienteering at Nobscot

MORE INFO:

To give you a little more information - this would be a 2 night campout (Fri/Sat) to Nobscot Scout Reservation (between Framingham and Sudbury). A very nice place to go, lots of interesting things to hike to (such as an overlook to see Boston, a sizable mountain that Thoreau, Longfellow and Emerson once hiked up, and an 18th century small-pox cemetery). We could do as either a large scale “troop campout,” cabins (if not too late to get one), or a backcountry experience (plenty of places to really get that sense of remoteness). You have to hike in all your camping gear, so we either put on wagons or on our backs.

The orienteering instruction is very good. Trained leaders lead the boys through the use of a map and spend a day working with them. It is mainly land navigation as opposed to compass work, but it depends on the leader running it (last year as one of the leaders I spent a good part of the day on compass skills). Sunday is a competitive (but no pressure) orienteering course which is a lot of fun (scouts go off in small groups without adults). It snowed lightly last year, but it really was great being outside that weekend.

I have found that scouts really like orienteering but have limited opportunities to practice their skills. You can’t find better training for those that have never used a map/compass before, or for those that have, a better place to build confidence. 

*** 

Link to Scouting Orienteering- if this link stays active, check out this site to see if you can find any local action: http://www.scoutorienteering.com/

We camp a fair amount and do a lot of activities. Even without thinking about it, we cover a lot of the MB material just in the natural course of having fun and talking about outdoor related subjects. All good stuff and often I wished I started the bluecards to give the kids credit. I’ve done a few things to facilitate this better for the troop.

1) With the approval of the Scoutmaster and Advancement Chairperson, I started a three ring binder with copied blue cards, three to a page (double sided just like the card), with all the scout’s names on them. The Scoutmaster has signed these (as he now does for all new scouts entering the troop), and we have officially enrolled the scouts in camping, hiking, backpacking, wilderness survival, and I threw in cycling as well. As you know, the scouts can not get credit for any work towards the merit badges unless they have the blue cards signed first.

2) I carefully went through all of the above four books as well as all the LNT material, found the overlaps, common themes, natural progressions, and lesson objectives and created this book. The idea is to make it 4.5 x 6 inches, spiral bind it down the side (kinko’s does at a reduced rate of $3/book with plastic covers), put it in a waterproof sleeve, and then have the scouts carry with them on all campouts.

Not only does this help the scout leader properly teach the kids about, say, stove or sleeping bags, but it also gives the kids something interesting to read while lying in their tents trying to sleep. The BSA book on backpacking is exceptionally good, but scouts don’t necessary read them and they don’t give some of the depth a good teacher would want to make the lesson as instructional (and complete) as possible. The attached is a work-in-progress draft. I’m hoping a company like REI, EMS, Eureka, etc. see the virtue and benefit of this and sponsor the production of these large scale. I could also use help finishing it off.

I want to mention that with this doc I’m not trying to cut corners. I am trying to be thorough, complete and efficient. If you are going to teach something, teach it right and completely.

3) Finally, with the troop committee’s approval, I’ve endeavored to create a unique patch for the kids once they complete all the “book” work (most of which is outdoors work). Getting in all those long distance hikes is going to take some time. This rewards them with something very cool for their efforts and outdoorsmenship. This step is a still a work in progress. The scouts were very receptive and interested. I was hoping for feedback from them on patch design. If I had more support, I could pull it off. Frankly, this type of program is not a one man deal, it requires the commitment from everyone to support. You know how hard that can be in scouting. It might have to wait until my younger son gets into scouts. If anyone wants to help on this let me know! (The point was this program needed to be incorporated into every trip we went on (to chip away little by little at all these things) and we needed to dedicate some troop meeting occasionally to it. I don’t think our troop committee really understood that.)

The attached is a real rough draft. It took a fair amount of time to get it this far, but it still needs lots of work and the pics need to be credited properly if possible. Outdoorsman Book rough draft (12MB)

Here is a hiking/camping checklist from the book that might be helpful:

hiking-camping-checklist.xls

If you are looking for an intro handout on hiking, camping, and backpacking, here’s a good start. Not my work, source noted at end.  [to be added]

Probably best suited for the older kids. After teaching this a few times, I remain convinced the kids get it and just want to learn more and more. They do need it spoon feed to them so it is easy to understand and it must include experiments so it is not a lecture. It is a fun few sessions and the kids feel quite accomplished learning all this new and different material.

I am also amazed that while I didn’t start learning this kind of stuff until sophmore year of college, they are getting it now. Kids are staying up late in China and India to learn this and be good at it, we need our kids to be as prepared. The knowledge base has expanded exponentially since we were their age. This is an example of why I like scouting, it facilitates exposure to slices of life they normally just would not get.

 energy-mb.pdf

energymb.ppt   < title page for 2008, new requirement

There is an interesting website with all kinds of home-made science toys/experiments. It’s called sci-toys.com. You may want to incorporate some of these into the program. Just in case the site goes down, here is a printout of their thermodynamic experiments:  scitoys.doc

My original thought was to have a working Stirling engine created for the class, but I ran out of time.

You may want to hook up with your local utility for instruction material. All the bigger companies have someone in corporate communications who is responsible for training. The video I used to start the class - “What is Energy” (a National Geographic film) was borrowed from our utility. It was really good and a great transition into the energy conversion exercise/demos.

Note that BSA changed the requirements in Jan 06. This is one MB where they just watered down the knowledge requirement for the worse. I think the older requirements could have been upgraded, but they did not get it right.

Here is an energy MB handout somebody created for a few of the new requirement (good for the home energy audit/auto analysis):

scout-energymbworkshop.pdf

Here is something new, the American Petroleum Institute (API) has just put together a website to help work through this merit badge:

          http://www.classroom-energy.org/merit_badge/

Update Note: I’m teaching this again right now in our MB college (3/08). I’ll post new notes when I have a chance. I’ve actually been able to use quite a number of my old slides. I’ve reread and reappraised the Boy Scout Energy Merit Badge booklet- it is as bad as I originally thought. Use something else to teach this one. I did not find the API web link I posted above to be that useful either. Good effort, but misses the mark.

Pioneering in many places is not like it used to be. You can’t just go and cut down trees anymore. Furthermore, the risks and liabilities are threatening, as is the cost for all the rope needed. Nevertheless, there is a time and place for this great scout activity.

There are a few free scout books floating around the internet, here are two that are better than most (the color one is from the Irish scout association).

scoutengineering.pdf

pioneeringprojects.pdf

The monkey bridge is probably the most common and really the most interesting project to take on. The books above provide a good resource to help you build one. If I come across something better that is more specific I will post. One trick to a good bridge is getting the large X end supports to incorporate small Y splits near the tops to hold up the guide ropes.

Note the monkey bridge is covered in the Guide to Safe Scouting, specifically:

Rope Monkey Bridges

When constructing monkey bridges, observe the following safety rules:

1. Always follow the steps for constructing monkey bridges outlined in the Pioneering merit badge pamphlet.

2. Before beginning the project, inspect your rope, looking at both the inside fibers and inner strands. Know the size and strength of the type of rope you are using, and its safe working load.

3. Monkey bridges should not be constructed higher than 5 feet above flat-surfaced ground nor longer than 40 feet. Initially, beginnersshould not span more than 25 feet.

4. Know the effect the knots will have in reducing rope strength and the proper care that rope requires.

5. Rope, especially rope carrying a load, should be checked each day before using. Rope carrying a load and left in place tends tobecome slack from fatigue and will break under stress. Tighten rope as necessary to maintain the integrity of the original construction.

6. Exercise special care when members of the public are allowed to use these monkey bridges. Establish controls when monkey bridgesare constructed outside the camp environment. Station Scouts at each end to control access to the bridge. Allow only one adult at atime on the bridge. Never allow unaccompanied children on the bridge. Shut down the bridge when any repairs are being made and donot reopen until the adult leader has approved the repairs.

7. Any activity on rope swings, monkey bridges, slide-for- life, or similar devices that are located over water must comply with SafeSwim Defense.

Last year we did this whitewater rafting trip out in western MA. They actually organize a full Whitewater MB class, but we wanted the kids to have an introductory run first before getting into the whole MB requirement process. It was on class III rapids which I thought were pretty mild (albeit, it was a dam release river and I don’t think we got the benefit of a huge rush of water). These kind of trip can be a little on the expensive side ($65-$100 each), but they are worth it. Every kid wants to do this activity. We did ours in early June and wore wetsuits, which was perfectly fine. Here’s a link to the MB program offered by the company we used:

 http://www.crabapplewhitewater.com/group_outings/scouts.shtml

Here’s a few up in Maine:

http://www.neoc.com/content/4033/_Girl_Scouts/

http://www.proriverrunners.com/index.php?page=scout_badges

http://www.adv-bound.com/

scout-whitewater-badges.pdf

These kind of trips are run all over the country. Here’s a couple in PA:

http://www.laurelhighlands.com/activities/meritbadge.html

http://www.wilderness-voyageurs.com/whitewater_merit_badge.htm

You’ll need to google whitewater MB [your state] to find local ones.

If you are looking for a nice powerpoint to introduce caving to the scouts, maybe the attached will help. I do not know the author, but this one is very good:

introduction_to_basic_caving.ppt 

Here is a guide to caving LNT:  lntcaving.pdf

There are quite a number of caving opportunities in the northeast. One on the list to get to is Eagle Cave, the largest wild cave in the Adirondacks. The local high adventure base sponsors excursions there:

 http://www.wpcbsa.org/SummitBase/Activities/AreaActivities.asp

The most noted cave in the region is Clarksville Cave, just outside of Albany, NY (pic above): http://www.necaveconservancy.org/preserves/clarksville_preserve.php 

A couple years ago the troop we were with hooked up with The Boston Grotto (www.bostongrotto.org/) and organized a trip for the boys here.

Be sure to check the Guide to Safe Scouting before this type of trip.

http://www.scouting.org/pubs/gss/gss09.html

Here’s something that looks pretty interesting - earning the geology merit badge (and mammal study) while exploring a cave. They seem to have a nice program designed. Could do all year, not just a summer activity. Lincoln Caverns is somewhat in the area of Gettysburg (center, bottom of PA), so if you are traveling there from afar, you might want to combine the two.

http://www.lincolncaverns.com/groups/scouts/index.html

I’ve been to this one before, just west of Albany, NY:

http://www.howecaverns.com/

They have all kinds of educational programs, they might be able to work with you to design a MB program.

These type of caverns are developed for visitors so they are not the type of activity as mentioned in caving post. My kids loved  Howe Caverns, it is worth the trip.