Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor
Plenty. There are close to 130 merit badges, with some taking a day or less to complete if you do the minimum required (e.g., Fingerprinting, Art, Traffic Safety), and others taking at least 3 months (Personal Fitness, Personal Management, Family Life). Some merit badges have pretty strenuous standards; for example, Rifle Shooting requires the Scout to shoot 5 5-shot groups the size of a US quarter at 50 ft. Cycling merit badge includes a progressive riding requirement that culminates in a 50 mile bike ride, and a total of 150 miles of riding overall.
Besides merit badges, there are other awards, such as Mile Swim (pretty much what it sounds like), 50-Miler afoot/afloat, and the various Hornaday conservation awards that require a fair number of nature-related merit badges and planning and conducting from 1 - 3 large scope group conservation projects.
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Cheers!
It's valuable for us to get a sense of how the program works in the US compared to our kids in NZ Scouts.
I don't have a problem with a few easy badges or ones for just showing up.....but we're already trying to get our two in the proper mindset that nothing worth having is easy. We've already asked the question of which badge they have do they like the best, fortunately the answer has been the one they had to actually work hard for.