UPDATE (11/1): Answers to some Frequently Asked Questions about these changes.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2014, this badge will get a silver border.
Moms and dads, prepare the needle and thread!
Sustainability and Cooking merit badges will join the list of Eagle-required merit badges over the next 14 months, the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board announced today.
Sustainability, a new merit badge, will join Environmental Science as an Eagle Scout option after its debut at the 2013 jamboree.
Cooking, meanwhile, will become Eagle-required as of Jan. 1, 2014.
The total number of merit badges required for the Eagle Scout Award will remain at 21. In other words, instead of 12 Eagle-required badges and 9 elective badges, a Scout must earn 13 Eagle-required and 8 elective badges.
Why the change? The goal is to “reflect a better balance of the needs of youth and our nation today and in the future,” according to the BSA’s resolution. Personally, I like it. Keeping up with the ever-changing world means questioning the way things have always been done.
Sustainability becomes more important as our population increases while resources decrease. And a boy who reaches Eagle without skills in cooking and healthy eating habits hasn’t become fully “Prepared. For Life.” in my opinion. I think the BSA’s board got it right on here.
What do you think?
For the list of Eagle-required merit badges as it looks now — and as it will look in 2014 — follow the jump.
Current list of Eagle-required merit badges
Earn a total of 21 merit badges, including the following:
- First Aid
- Citizenship in the Community
- Citizenship in the Nation
- Citizenship in the World
- Communication
- Personal Fitness
- Emergency Preparedness OR Lifesaving
- Environmental Science
- Personal Management
- Swimming OR Hiking OR Cycling
- Camping
- Family Life
List of Eagle-required merit badges, effective Jan. 1, 2014
Earn a total of 21 merit badges, including the following:
- First Aid
- Citizenship in the Community
- Citizenship in the Nation
- Citizenship in the World
- Communication
- Personal Fitness
- Emergency Preparedness OR Lifesaving
- Environmental Science OR Sustainability
- Personal Management
- Swimming OR Hiking OR Cycling
- Camping
- Family Life
- Cooking
Lake Tahoe photo: Some rights reserved by CaDeltaFoto
This is Bogus! There is enough required badges already.. Declining enrollment is already a challenge.. this will just make it worse.. Keep it as an elective!!
About camps. Ours offers a program for the younger boys, but it is all week long. They have virtually no opportunity to earn any badges. And our camp offers badges that they would not be able to get any other time (for many boys anyway – especially inner city ones) – like motorboating, waterskiing, jet ski, canoeing, kayaking, mile swim, etc. We also have a climbing tower so that badge is offered.
And, by the time our crossovers go to camp – they have already earned at least Tenderfoot if not 2nd or 1st class. To make them go through the beginner stuff at camp would cause them not to return the following year.
In Missouri we have many camps. Camp Hohn is the one above. We have ‘retention’ program called Sons of Daniel Boone for those boys who might quit coming because they already have all the badges they want or need. It’s fantastic – you can actually earn 6 different ranks while there – but you have a lt of requirements and you can only earn one rank a year and you can’t join until you 3rd year at camp – so conceivably you are coming to camp well after you turn 18, lol! And they have adult ranks as well.
The max badges you can get is 4 (M-T mornings; W-T mornings; M-T afternoons; and W-Th afternoons; Fridays are free days to make up missed requirements or ones unable to complete – happens a lot with the shooting badge).
Another camp you can earn a lot more but that’s because meals are provided – when you have to cook (as at Hohn) you are given 2 hours for lunch. I hate to cook, I want to go to the other one next year, and be SERVED lunch, lol!
In all fairness, each camp has their own pros and cons. It’s all in what you want to do. If your troop is old hat at cooking then going to the one that doesn’t cook would be fun. If you have boys that need a lot of help and practice in cooking – then Hohn is a better choice. It’s all about choices.
BTW: Summer 2013 will be my SIXTH year at camp as a leader….3 of those as scoutmaster.
im and ast scoutmaster and i teach the merit badge at lunch time at the camp we go to
I, too, am an Eagle Scout from the Class of 1975. I had to earn 24 merit badges (later changed back to 21). Having continued to work with the program since then I have always bemoaned the dropping of Cooking from the required Eagle list. It’s about time it came back in. I believe it was all related to the then move away from the outdoor program. Camping with out Cooking is like salt without pepper. So, good! I would’ve agreed,anyway, to 22 total if they had put Cooking back in. Let’s get back to what it should be and get away from merit badge mills. I hate the fact that the program tries to push the boys through before they turn 15 and discover the two fumes (gasoline and perfume): most really don’t “get it” until they are older anyway….punching a punch list for the sake of a punch list is not productive. Oh, by the way: my Eagle Board of Review was comprehensive – I was responsible for demonstrating skills and knowledge from Tenderfoot to my last merit badge as a Life Scout. National has put that off limits, which is a real shame. I expect an Eagle to be compentent in everything in the Handbook, cover to cover – period.
I’m an Eagle Scout from 2007; I didn’t earn the Cooking merit badge. I personally think the Cooking MB needed to be restructured or split; there should be an Indoor one and an Outdoor one.
I think that if the BSA wanted to add requirements, they should add one or more of the following:
1) A choice of a “brainy” merit badge, like Scholarship, Reading, or Public Speaking. Reading boils down to volunteering at a library for ; and Public Speaking is just give a speech, give a PowerPoint presentation, and give a short off-the-cuff talk; I have no idea why boys never earn those
2) A choice of a vocational-type merit badge, like Law or Journalism or Auto Mechanics; something that makes you think about a career.
I love the adding of Cooking as a requirement as it is a needed lifeskill. I don’t love the Sustainability merit badge idea. Whoever created it is obviously unaware of the U.N.’s Agenda 21. This badge goes right along with it.
I’m an Eagle class of 1983, and a current Scoutmaster. I generally agree with both of these choices, but will reserve further opinion until I see the requirements. I like the recent changes BSA has been making, and our new national leadership.
I think Cooking should be a required MB. It is an important part of Scouting and life.
I do not think Environmental Science should be an either or MB. It too is an important part of Scouting and life. If Sustainability is to be a merit badge start it out as an elective and see how popular it becomes. I do not believe it is important enough to be an either or with Environmental Science. That will be a big mistake.
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What boys will his effect? I have some life scouts with eagle applications filled out and ready to be turned in
Thanks
If a scout earns cooking as an elective will he be able to count it as an Eagle required bade, or will it still count as an elective. Furthermore, will he be able to display the new badge with the silver ring?
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Love the addition of Cooking. Regardless of whether or not you like to do it, it is an important life skill and I am glad to see it back with the silver ring again!
As a newly minted Eagle Scout myself, I don’t think this is a bad idea. We’re required to learn how to camp, swim, manage money, and become productive members of our communities, but there is no requirement to learn how to cook. One of the biggest reasons obesity has become such a problem in the United States is because everything either comes from a package or the Golden Arches. Very few people cook balanced meals containing fresh vegetables, meats, and non-processed starches. Hamburger Helper is nice if you’re tired and in a hurry, but nothing replaces a nice beef and veggie stew from a crockpot (or a Dutch oven if you’re camping).
Will you be posting a photo of the new badges when they are released?
Having a large Troop I see this as a problem. As it is now it’s hard enough for the Scouts to get the requirements done for Second and First Class. I like the Idea of splitting cooking into 2 badges. One for outdoor and one for indoor cooking. As an Eagle Scout of 30 plus years I think it’s unfair to ask the newer generation to do more than we did Scouts to earn the Eagle Badge. Already in school kids are asked to do way more than most in my generation had to do. Let’s face it some people love to cook and some hate it.
Just great. Now the BSA has bought into the junk science about global warming, despite the fact that there’s been no warming in 15 years. Climategate anyone? And the green energy scam. Whatever.
More than eight in 10 scientists believe climate change is largely caused by humans, so the BSA is just preparing Scouts for a life in which an understanding of climate change will help make the world better for their futures. That’s being “Prepared. For Life.”
Webster’s defines “Sustainability” as “of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged.” Which sounds a lot like “conservation” to me. Something I learned about as a Scout 40 years ago.
When it comes to scientific evidence either humans are causing climate change or they are not. Scientists’ beliefs are not evidence. Since some of the evidence being cited by the experts was manipulated to prove human induced climate change, the credibility of those scientists has been weakened. I agree that cooking is a good badge to make Eagle required, but I am afraid that scouting’s choice to add the Sustainability merit badge to the Eagle required list smacks of political correctness rather than contributing to a scout’s knowledge and skills.
I’m just saying it’s part of the discussion that should at least be passed along to Scouts. Let them make up their own minds. Either way, sustainable living means more than a debate over climate change.
TomM put it well. There has not been a fair discourse on the topic. There has been a lot of beliefs. Academicians like to tout it because they can get funding for it. The left wing agenda that coined the term in 1988 at the UN included the “redistribution of wealth” as part of it’s recommendation for us to become sustainable. It only takes a little research to discover where some of this influence is coming from.