Scouting: Scouting Resources

Scoutcraft

Nature

Aquatics

Links

There are many wonderful scouting resources available on the web these days.  So I won't even try to replicate what they offer.  Instead, I'll list a few of the better ones at the bottom of this page, and I will add others that I think are unique, special or very important.

Scoutcraft: (top)

General scoutcraft activities; camping, cooking, pioneering, hiking, etc., form the backbone of the scouting program.  Here are a few resources to help you orient your scouts.

• Silver Spoon Award
  This is an award I devised for our troop as a a way to encourage cooking skills and the patrol method.  The award rules, judging sheets and tally sheets are available in HTML, PDF or MS Word DOC format.

• Beading Projects
  I recently started to learn how to bead on a loom.  I was inspired by an experienced beader at a Circus World Heritage scouting event in Baraboo, WI.  This page includes advise from my own limited experience (so far), a few patterns, and links to the few but helpful websites on scout beading.

Nature (top)

Nature and conservation are two very important components in the scouting program.   With the beautiful outdoors, there would be no place to put the "out" in scouting.  It's also an area that's a personal favorite of mine going back to when I was a scout at Chicago Area Council's summer camp, Owasippe Scour Reservation.  I was even fortunate enough to serve as Nature Director at Camp Stuart in 1977.  Anyway, there will likely be more entries in this section than all of the others combined!

• Bird Call Game
  Here's a Scout contest I'm developing to help teach scouts to identify bird calls.   Properly identifying bird calls can be used to identify some of the animals for Second Class rank requirements (10 animals total are required), or part of the Bird Study merit badge (5 bird calls required).
  
  
• Natural Dyeing
  I took on a rather ambitious project at this year's summer camp (2000).  I decided to try my hand at using natural plants to dye cotton yarn.  I would then use this yarn to braid or knot a band to wrap at the top of my hiking staff.  I could then use yarn tails from the band to string our troop activity beads for display.   The project went very well thanks to help and/or advise I received from my old National Camping School instructor, Joe "Duke" Olechno, Teri from The Fold and several web sites dedicated to the subject.  Click on the "Natural Dying" heading to learn what I did and where you can find internet resources on the subject.
  

Aquatics (top)

Links (top)