Scouting Programs

New Date for NCAC’s Second All-Council Campfire – Aug. 29th!

July 23, 2020 by The Scouter Digest Staff

Save the Date for NCAC’s second all-council Campfire on August 29th! And wait for it……. it’s Sing-a-long style. Yep, tha’s right. The Order of the Arrow will host and provide the words for you to sing with us! We expect we’ll all be in our own key and probably off a little in time, but who cares? We’re singing.

Special guest from Golden Gate Area Council, Mike Fujimoto – get a kazoo and sing “Scouting Thunder” with Fuji and friends! And of course, we can’t forget old favorites like Dum Dum Da Da and the Philmont Hymn. More details to come!

STEMaTHON | The Great Scouting Invitational

July 23, 2020 by NCAC STEM

STEMaTHON is a 2 day virtual event hosted by the National Capital Area Council’s STEM Commitee, which aims to encourage exploration of STEM interests, future career opportunities and hobbies.

Join us from September 5-6, 2020 for a STEMaTHON: Scouts Building Bridges and Feeding the World through the lens and tools of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This two day event includes online workshops, keynotes, tours, presentations and even activities!

The scheduled events are below, but there are also activities you can do in advance to be featured in the STEMaTHON:

– Build a bridge in the STEMaTHON Engineering Bridge competition! When you register for the competition, we will mail you the kits. You are also invited to attend the Engineering Merit Badge STEMaTHON sessions to earn your Engineering Merit Badge. Be sure to check out the attachment on this webpage for more on the competition.

– Design and execute Rube Goldberg Machine that rolls a can of food a distance of at least 1 foot, film your creation and send the video in to our channel! Details attached in the webpage.

Scheduled Events:

Saturday: Building Bridges

10AM : Welcome Keynote

11AM : STEM Careers Conference

Professional Engineer, Mr. Paul MacDonald, Career Talk & Q&A

12PM : Lunch Hour Programming

1PM : Bridges to the Point of Destruction | Live Competition

3PM : Inventions Showcase

3:30 PM : Supernova & Nova Kickoff!

Sessions for Cub Scouts & Scouts BSA on how to get started with the Nova & Supernova Awards

5PM : STEM Scouts | Season 6 Kickoff

6:30 PM: STEM Innovator Moment

Rockets & Airplanes, 30 years at NASA with Mr. Tony Springer & Q&A

8PM: Astronomy Activity

Sunday: Feeding the World

10AM : UMD, AGNR Keynotes

Dean Dr. Beyrouty, Chair Dr. Bowerman, Professor Dr. Ellis
Food Security & Food Safety, Green Infrastructure & Water Quality Treatment

11AM: 4H Water Quality & Community Service

11:45PM : Engineers Without Borders | Water around the World

12:30PM : Food (In)Security and Sustainable Development

1:00PM : Einstein’s Science Fair

with NCAC Einstein Supernova recipient William Cather

2PM : Feeding The World: Rube Goldberg Machines

3PM : Bees and Honey

4PM : STEM Awards & Closing

Will you build a bridge?

July 23, 2020 by Stanley Fricke

Attention, all those who are up for a challenge…

The Great STEMaTHON Invitational includes a bridge building competition that will be showcased live online, on Saturday, September 5, 2020. Will you build a bridge?

Everyone will receive the same set of materials upon registration, and have 16 days to build their bridges! You can see the full set of materials and how the bridges will be measured (or weighted, rather!) in this PDF: BridgeCompetition.

Scouts are also invited to pre-STEMaTHON sessions to help you earn the Engineering Merit Badge. Sessions will be held on August 4, 5, 17 and 18. Of course, by participating in this bridge competition, you will already earn requirement 6!

Be sure to join us for the whole event: September 5-6, 2020 for a STEMaTHON in which you will be part of Scouts Building Bridges and Feeding the World through the lens and tools of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This two day event includes online workshops, keynotes, tours, presentations and even activities!

Cub-A-Day Program Week 7 (July 20 – July 25)

July 19, 2020 by The Scouter Digest Staff

MONDAY

This is Make Some MUSIC Monday – Recycle items from your house to make a rain stick or a drum. Even better if you and a family member or a friend can jam together on multiple homemade instruments.

If you are a Bear – Make sure to get credit for World of Sound Requirement #3 and Webelos should get credit for Maestro Requirement #2a.

TUESDAY

It’s Taste Something Tuesday!

Taste Something Tuesday – Every Scout should know a couple of go-to campfire desserts – We made S’mores for Family Fun Friday during week 1, so now let’s try another camp cooked treat – Banana Boats!

Here are some https://www.freshoffthegrid.com/campfire-banana-boats/ (You can use an oven if a campfire isn’t an option)

WEDNESDAY

It’s Wander Around Wednesday!

Wander Around Wednesday – If you’ve been keeping up your ScoutStrong tracker since Week 1 – Take a celebration walk!! You should have enough entries to complete the award!

If you aren’t quite there yet – Start logging now and you’ll finish up in early September.

Get your ScoutStrong paperwork signed by an adult in your home and then sent to your Den Leader or Cubmaster.

THURSDAY

It’s Do Something Thoughtful Thursday:

Thoughtful Thursday – The 1st and 2nd of August is NCACs Do A Good Turn Weekend.
To get ready – Work with your Den or Pack to find a local charity and see what you can do to give them a hand.

Check out the ideas here – https://weownadventure.com/good-turn-weekend-aug-1-2/

You could start a drive-through food drive, collect blankets or bags to donate, or help organize their facility.

For example: For our Scouts in the Alexandria area – Collecting paper grocery bags to help food pantries distribute supplies could help the Mother of Light Center in Del Ray.

Service projects can earn credit for the NCAC Scouting at Home Award: https://www.scoutingevent.com/082-scoutingathomeaward

FRIDAY

It’s Family Fun Friday:

Family Fun Friday – Work together on a task the benefits the whole family – Some laundry or cleaning around the house maybe? It might not sound fun now, but working together as a family is a great quality family time and it improves your home!

This also completes the first activity in the Explore My Family category of the Cub Family Summertime Passport: https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/AqAQD4gKhjdXw4m2AkDEbCWn

SATURDAY

It’s Safety Saturday…

You can still work on the Protect Yourself Adventure if you haven’t finished it already…but this week we are going to start a new theme – Emergency Preparedness.

Pick any requirement from the Emergency Preparedness Award and work on it as a family- The requirements for each rank can be found here: https://www.scouting.org/awards/awards-central/emergency-preparedness/

Cub Scouts Investigate Electronics in STEM@Home!

July 14, 2020 by NCAC STEM

On Saturday, June 27, NCAC held its’ 4th STEM@Home Nova event! Nova Counselor, Dr. Jason Kralj of Potomac District ran a ZOOM class for 20 Cub Scouts to earn the Nova Award: Swing!

Scouts completed a few requirements on their own (such as watching physics-related videos for requirement 1 and submitted their assignments for Dr. Kralj to review in Google Classroom).

However, we did most of the requirements together during the ZOOM class. A very fun activity was requirement 2A: With parental permission, Cubs took an old or broken mechanical item and broke it down into its component pieces! We investigated some cool items in our class; cubs took apart alarm clocks, scooters, CD players, hard drives, and even washing machine components! Can you tell what is what?!

The class was lots of fun and almost all of the cubs completed their Nova Awards!

Want to join the next STEM@Home event? Dr. Kralj is teaching Down & Dirty this Saturday, July 18 and you can sign up here: https://scoutingevent.com/082-STEMatHome

This upcoming event will have a cool twist to it too:

- From 1-1:30PM, this session will include an interaction with WD Lab Grown Diamonds, which uses patented Chemical Vapor Disposition to create diamonds for the gemstone market as well as for medical and scientific fields!
- From 1:30 – 3PM, cubs in the Down & Dirty Class will continue their activities and requirements with Nova Counselor Dr. Kralj

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

July 13, 2020 by The Scouter Digest Staff

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.