In October, Troop 1577 went canoeing at Mallows Bay. This bay has a fascinating history as a “shipwreck graveyard.” Hundreds of ships were purposefully sunk here after World War I when they were no longer needed as transportation. Many of the wrecks broke up and bits floated away, but there are still some wrecks which you can tour by canoe or kayak at low tide. They are now covered with vegetation and provide wildlife habitat. But you can still see giant metal bolts and ship components embedded in the wood. There are also a few other wrecks including a car ferry called the Accomac which houses osprey nests, and an old Sea Scout wreck. It takes about 2 hours to view the site. It became the most recently created National Marine Fisheries Sanctuary in the nation in July 2019.
The troop camped at Cedarville State Forest about an hour away. There is a closer state park with youth group campsites called Smallwood (only 15 minutes away) but it is closed for renovations until 2023. In the evening, we had Dutch oven meals including monkey bread and played board games.
It took months to complete all of the requirements and challenges for this award, but even though at times I wanted to drop it all together, I pushed through. My favorite activities were the coding project I did, shadowing a heliophysicist, and teaching cub scouts how to make a fan powered car. Especially during the shadowing, I learned so much about what it’s like to work at NASA, and so much on recent projects and interesting things happening in the world of engineering right now.
Sydney is pictured above (right) along with Lauren (left) who also earned the Edison Supernova, and Mr. Bruce Donlin (center), the Supernova Mentor for both scouts. As Sydney and Lauren display their Supernova medals, Mr. Donlin displays the Silver Pyramid, a STEM Award he was presented for creating a Council-wide, large scale, sustainable STEM event!