STEM Scouts

NCAC Celebrates Earth Week with Home Activities

April 20, 2020 by Arden Dougan

It’s the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day! We are celebrating all week with special activities! NCAC’s Earth Week is brought to you by our Conservation Committee. We will have daily NCACBSA Facebook Live Brown Bag presentations on Boy Scouts of America Hornaday Awards, other Conservation awards, and will have some fun activities. On Earth Day, Scouts will choose a part of the Scout Law and do activities on that theme, sharing pictures and promises on Facebook and will have fun activities all day long.

Don’t miss the William Hornaday Gold Medal talk by NCAC’s very own recipient, Dr. Bill Bowerman! Sign up here to get the ZOOM link: https://www.scoutingevent.com/082-earthday.

Tuesday April 21
12:00 PM Brown Bag – Hornaday Awards – an overview for youth and adults, Will Rodger, NCAC Conservation Committee Chair

Wednesday, April 22 – EARTH DAY!
Watch the NCAC Facebook page for updates, challenges and fun ways to celebrate!
9:00 AM: Facebook Live: Plan Your Earth Day
12:00 PM: Brown Bag – Hornaday Unit Awards, Sarah Holtz & Carol Brown, NCAC Conservation Committee
5:00 PM: Facebook Live: Earth Day Recap
7:00 PM: William T. Hornaday Gold Medal Talk

Thursday, April 23
12:00 NOON Brown Bag – Messengers of Peace Awards, Abdul Rashid Abdulla

Friday, April 24
12:00 NOON Brown Bag – Earning the World Conservation Award, Conservation Good Turn and National Park Service Junior Ranger Award, Sara Holtz, NCAC Conservation Committee

To learn more tune into one or all of our Facebook lives this week at 12pm. Visit Earthday.org to learn more about Earth day activities and more.

Special thank yous to two NCAC STEM Committee members, to the Conservation Committee Chair, Will Rodger, and Conservation Committee Members Sara Holtz, Carol Brown & Abdul Rashid Abdulla for pulling this together!

STEM-TASTIC SUMMER FOR A LOCAL CUB SCOUT!

September 10, 2019 by Marcus Martin

This summer has been STEM-tastic, for local scout, Marco J. Martin. During the summer of 2018, Marco spent countless hours working on the Boy Scouts of America NOVA and Supernova STEM program and on Friday, June 14, 2019 all of his hard work was recognized when he received the Dr. Luis Alvarez Supernova medal, a plaque, a NOVA patch and a variety of congratulatory letters from his Senator, Congressman and County Executive to mark this momentous occasion. What an awesome way to begin a STEM-tastic Summer.

His next STEM adventure would take place as he participated in his first Cub Scout Summer Day Camp in Hughesville, MD at the Kings Landing National Park. He had an opportunity to present a STEM project to his fellow Scouts and complete the NOVA section: Uncovering the Past with the help of his camp Den Leader, Amanda Zimmerman.

Once Cub Scout Camp came to a close, he continued to explore the world of STEM by attending a STEM Fair at the Community Center in Alexandria, VA which was sponsored by an organization named Fly Minds. At this event, he was the grand prize winner of a STEM door raffle. He won his very own VEX Robot. Later in the summer, he attended 2 of 3 free STEM Day programs by Fly Minds where he was a part of team that built and programmed their own robot. Now that’s cool!!

Just when you thought his STEM-TASTIC Summer couldn’t get any better, a new STEM Scout unit was forming in Alexandria, VA which he became a part of. His Cub Scout Pack 539 was taking a break during the summer and his STEM Scout unit Lab 9941 led by Burt Wagner was just getting off the ground. His new uniform was a lab coat, disposal gloves and rubber goggles. The first three weeks his unit did science experiments that made Slime, a Bouncy Ball and Silly Sand. Each experiment required Marco and his lab mates to read lab instructions, gather the necessary ingredients and mix various items to get different results as the project called for. It was funny watching the kids learn by measuring and modifying the experiments to see if more or less of an item made a difference towards the end result.

Marco’s last STEM adventure for the Summer would involve the DMV NSBE Jr Chapter located at Howard University. He became a new member and membership has privileges. During the school year, he will be a member of the Lego Robotics team. Each weekend, he will have the chance to learn Spanish and work on Advance mathematics. What I thought was the coolest thing that NSBE Jr had to offer was Marco could talk to an Astronaut and get all of his science and space questions answered.

STEM summer days are over and Prince George’s County schools are be back in session. Hopefully, this article will encourage other Scouts to learn more about STEM and to see what activities occur during the school year! Have a STEM-TASTIC day!

New STEM Scouts Lab forming in Alexandria!

May 8, 2019 by Burt Wagner

Do you have a burgeoning engineer or scientist growing up in your house?
Are you sick of your kid taking apart the TV to “see how it works?”
Does your carpet bear the marks of past chemistry experiments?
We have an outlet for that STEM energy!

STEM Scouts is a new type of unit for boys and girls interested in STEM. We will meet every other week at the US Patent & Trademark Office in Alexandria, VA. Our unit will start meetings in early June, so you would need to register by May 21. For details, please email Lab Manager Burt Wagner.

AKELA Chess Classic Expands to Include Entire Council

January 29, 2019 by The Scouter Digest Staff

Powhatan District has hosted a Chess Classic for a decade under the direction of Roger Claff and Peter Snow. This year, they are expanding the Chess Classic to be Council-wide. This is a tournament with 5 rounds. Scouts need to register for their age appropriate bracket. Please see the links below for tournament rules and additional details.

The Scouts BSA Tournament will be held on February 2nd at Trinity Presbytarian Church in Herndon, VA. The Cub Scout Tournament will be held on February 9th at St. Raphael School in Rockville, MD.

Those interested in participating in the Cubs Tournament can register at https://scoutingevent.com/082-akelaChess_CUBS. For those who wish to participate in the Scouts BSA Tournament, please visit https://scoutingevent.com/082-akelaChess_SCOUTS for registration and more information.

Lab 1576 Holds Electronics Showcase

January 17, 2019 by The Scouter Digest Staff

Lab 1576, the first STEM Scouts unit in NCAC, held an electronics showcase this past Saturday.

The ADAMS Center sponsored the first Junior STEM Scouts Lab in NCAC, Lab 1576. Over the past few months, these STEM Scouts learned about electronics and innovated “Community Buzzers”, “Burglar Alarms”, and “Electronic Basketball” using littleBits electronics. Their next module is Squishy, Gooey Chemistry. Stay tuned for more fun projects!

STEM Scouts is a national pilot program focused on fun ways for girls and boys to learn more about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The National Capital Area Council adopted the program this past fall, thus making STEM Scouts open to boys and girls in three divisions: grades 3-5, grades 6-8, and grades 9-12.

In the STEM Scouts program, educational content, developed and vetted by STEM educators, is designed to be immersive and to inspire teamwork, problem solving and independent thinking. Through hands-on activities delivered directly to the unit, this 26-week program is ultimately designed to be challenging, thought-provoking and, especially, fun.

For more information on STEM Scouting, please visit www.stemscouts.org.

Happy New Year! Scoutbook Is Now Free for Scouts and Scout Units

January 2, 2019 by The Scouter Digest Staff

Authored by Bryan Wendell, this post originally appeared on Bryan on Scouting: A blog for the BSA’s Adult Leaders, January 1, 2019.

Fellow Scouters, 2019 is off to a great start.

Scoutbook, the Boy Scouts of America’s online tool for managing and tracking Scouting advancement, is now completely, totally, 100 percent free. The change became official today — Jan. 1, 2019.

Longtime users know how Scoutbook makes it easy (and fun!) for Scouts, parents and leaders to track advancement and milestone achievements along the Scouting trail.

Before 2019, individuals, units or councils paid a small annual fee — up to $1 per Scout per year — to access Scoutbook’s suite of unit-management features.

In 2019 and beyond, those same great features are available for the best possible price: $0.

Now everyone can learn what more than 1 million users already know: Scoutbook can improve your Scouting experience.

Here’s what else you need to know:

How will my unit be affected?

Units with a current Scoutbook account will continue to use Scoutbook as before.
Councils that provide Scoutbook accounts for their units will no longer need to manage a subscription process for units starting a new account.
Units without a current Scoutbook account will be able to access Scoutbook free on Scoutbook.com and elsewhere.

How will subscriptions/renewals work in 2019 and beyond?

The need to subscribe or renew annually will become unnecessary.

Once your unit is on Scoutbook, you’ll be set for as long as your unit would like to continue using this free tool.

How will making Scoutbook free affect its performance?

Scoutbook will only continue to improve.

The BSA IT and Member Care teams will continue to support Scoutbook with their timely service and quality resources. Scoutbook performance enhancements have been implemented regularly over the years, and its performance is continually monitored. That will continue.

What’s new in this release of Scoutbook?

Scoutbook has a new Single Sign On (SSO) process that will allow users to easily create accounts with the same properties as my.scouting accounts.

You’ll use the same account credentials (username and password) for both platforms. This makes things much easier for users by streamlining the login process.

For details, consult this list of Frequently Asked Questions [PDF], which includes a step-by-step guide for use of SSO.

Where can I get more information about this change in Scoutbook?

Keep an eye on Scoutbook.com for all the latest updates.

If you still have questions, you can always contact the friendly and helpful folks at Scoutbook support. Their email: Scoutbook.support@scouting.org