We Own Adventure

Scouting News for the DC Metro Area

The Scouter Digest Staff

Cub-A-Day Program Week 6 (July 13th – July 18th)

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MONDAY

We are taking a flight for Make Something Monday!  Paper Airplanes are a fun way to learn about aerodynamics!!

Classic Paper Airplanes: https://cubscoutideas.com/5723/make-paper-airplane/
Round Paper Airplane: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/ring-wing-glider/

Our Wolf Scouts can complete Air of the Wolf and Motor Away requirements with this activity.  Any Scout Wolf to Arrow of Light may be able to use this as an experiment for a NOVA Award if you talk to a NOVA counselor.

Make it even more fun – Talk with a friend and see if they want to build a paper airplane too!!

TUESDAY

It’s Taste Something Tuesday!
You’ve probably used up your hiking snacks with all our Wander Around Wednesday excursions – so today – Let’s make trail mix or GORP (Good Old Raisins and Peanuts).

Have each member of your family pick an ingredient (or two) and bag it up for travel treats!  You can find some ideas from this Boys Life article: https://boyslife.org/features/143982/35-tasty-trail-mix-ingredients/

WEDNESDAY

It’s Wander Around Wednesday!
We’ve searched for Animals, Plants, and Litter – Now we look for ROCKS!  Head out on a hike and see how many different types of rocks you can find, and try to identify them.  Keep a couple of smooth rocks for tomorrow!

Webelos and Arrow of Light – Make sure to get signed off for your Earth Rocks requirements!

Make sure your parent logs your hike on your Cub Family Summer Passport: https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/AqAQD4gKhjdXw4m2AkDEbCWn

THURSDAY

It’s Do Something Thoughtful Thursday:

A Kindness Rock can brighten someone’s day, even if you’ve never met.  Use the rocks you saved from yesterday (or go find a couple of smooth ones) and paint a Kindness Rock or two.

Leave it somewhere that someone else will find it!

Kindness Rock How-To: https://www.thekindnessrocksproject.com/howto

FRIDAY

It’s Family Fun Friday:

Yoga can relieve stress and improve flexibility – Learn and practice a yoga pose with your family.  If you use a video yoga class, you can count that as activity time on your ScoutStrong tracker.

(If you’ve been keeping up with ScoutStrong – You are almost done with the award by now!!)

YouTube has a number of free yoga videos – Find one that you like to start practicing!

SATURDAY

It’s Safety Saturday…
We’ve worked each week on the Protect Yourself Preview Adventure – This week you should be able to finish up any requirements you have left and submit them to your leader.  https://www.scouting.org/programs/cub-scouts/preview-adventures/protect-yourself-rules/

Completing an Adventure at Home is another requirement for the NCAC Scouting@Home 2020 Award! https://www.scoutingevent.com/082-scoutingathomeaward and the Cub Family Summer Passport: https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/AqAQD4gKhjdXw4m2AkDEbCWn

Also – The Protect Yourself Adventure can be used for CyberChip credit.

Public Health Merit Badge in the COVID Pandemic

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To be perfectly honest, when I signed up for the online Public Health Merit Badge, I only wanted to get another merit badge towards Eagle. I thought “well, I suppose I’ll do it. I want more merit badges”. The funny thing is, sometimes the merit badges you think will be just something to earn end up being the most interesting. First of all, I had an awesome merit badge counselor. Unlike the other merit badges I earned, she seemed genuinely interested in my class learning, not just going through the motions. She encouraged us to research questions for ourselves and share information and ideas about our experiences and knowledge in class.

Second, we learned outside of what was required. We learned all sorts of things in class including (but definitely not limited to) how water spreads disease, the difference between immunization and vaccination, and about diseases like gonorrhea, West Nile virus, Zika, botulism, influenza, syphilis, hepatitis, emphysema, meningitis, herpes, and lead poisoning, to name a few. I also learned about the health drawbacks of water, air, and noise pollution. I had no idea there are so many!

One thing I learned that I hadn’t even thought about is how racism, especially systemic racism, is a public health crisis. If systemic racism forces some American minorities to have fewer economic and social opportunities than white Americans, this can put minorities in less than ideal living conditions and can lead to a decline in their physical and mental health. It made me think: The fact that people live in conditions like these at all is not okay, and the fact that systemic racism is an underlying cause is even worse. It is un-just to have people suffering when what makes them suffer is the unfairness of others.

This merit badge also taught me more about Covid-19, both in a public health way and a personal way. I learned about the spread of diseases like Covid-19 and even made this about staying safe during the pandemic video , but I also learned that you can still go to interesting places and learn new things during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the one plausible option for requirement 5, you have to go to a solid waste management operation. Normally during non-Covid-19 days we would go on a “field trip” in class, but this time we went by ourselves. I went to a transfer facility, or as many call it, “the dump”. Even though we had to wait in line to get in, it was definitely worth it. I had no idea what a dump looked like, and it was really interesting to see what people brought to the dump. I even saw a wagon in the pile and the pick-up truck in front of us dropped off a mattress!

I think that one of the main lessons to get out of this is that there is always time for learning, and that often scouts enjoy the merit badge more if their counselors seem excited and make an effort to teach scouts outside of the requirements. I really enjoyed this merit badge, and I think the others in my session did too.

Stay home! Stay safe!

Written by Scout Evelyn

Basecamp at Goshen Home Camping!

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I would like to give a huge shout out to the Goshen Home Camping staff and support personnel. I know it was a lot of hard work and challenges to put this all together but your passion and dedication really showed.

While maybe not in the mountains of Goshen Pass, we still was able to transform our dining room into our own basecamp. This far exceeded our expectation and kept my Scout active and engaged.

Avoided a mess on the floor from tie/dye and Adventures in Science!

To learn more about Goshen Home Campng or to sign your Scout up today please visit gotogoshen.org.

Eagle Project District Review is COVID-19 Proof!

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John Drisco, my George Mason District Eagle representative, met me at my church’s Fellowship Hall to discuss and improve my Eagle Project proposal. Normally this is a simple matter of contacting one of our district Eagle reps and setting a time and place to meet. But we all know that nothing has been simple since the pandemic started for all of us in the NCAC in March!

I first had to review BSA guidance, local restrictions, and our church safety standards and then plan the room preparation after getting approval from several different groups! My dad and I arrived early with our masks, wipes, and hand sanitizer. Set up an eight-foot table, some chairs, and wiped everything down. A Scout is prepared.

But despite all the challenges, it was a great meeting and experience. Mr. Drisco provided input on tracking hours, planning and budgeting costs (don’t forget pizza to feed scouts and adult helpers). To clearly state the benefits of the project, and how you measure success. Oh, that last one might have been from my Life to Eagle Coach? Take before and after pictures. Keep good notes in the planning notebook and notify the beneficiary, troop leadership and my district Eagle representative if anything changes on the scope of the project. Do not put off writing it up your project once completed, or you will forget details. Then once you have written everything up, review your notes one last time and type it up to make it look professional. Be proud of your work because it will be read by the board of review, the district, the council and at National!

As we all stood up to go, we were reminded that Safety will be a big factor on future Eagle projects. Plan for how to keep Scouts and adults safe. Have a checklist and remind Scouts on how to be safe while helping. Have masks, gloves, wipes, hand sanitizer and plan for social distancing! As we wiped down the table with Clorox wipes and returned the table and chairs to storage, I felt my mask, remembered to use hand sanitizer, to keep my distance and waved thanks to Mr. Drisco. Now to the next step on my journey to Eagle. Good luck to all the Life Scouts working hard on Eagle Projects in the Pandemic! We can and will make a difference.

Bobby Humphreys
SPL Troop 345

Free Leadership Seminar July 9th at 5pm EST

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Join us for our third Seminar for youth leaders this Thursday, 7/9 at 5pm, delivered by youth NYLT staff. The topic for this seminar will be titled, “Mastering the Art of Improvement.” Scouting provides opportunities to try new things and take on new roles. But few people are instantly good at something they’ve never done before, like cooking over a fire, or holding a new position of leadership. Learn the tools Scouting gives us to improve after each experience.

Register here today!