Fresh meeting activity ideas to engage a Scout’s passion for exploration

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Crack the code left behind in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Experiment on an egg to discover the effects of pollution on our oceans. Gauge astronaut readiness with simple (and fun) endurance and agility tests.

Those are just three of the hands-on meeting activity ideas available to Scout leaders at the all-new Nat Geo Kids Explorers Club.

Go to the Explorers Club page on the Boys’ Life website to get started.

To celebrate the current theme, Exploration, the Nat Geo Kids Explorers Club offers chapter samplers from its new Ultimate Explorer Guide and one of its Ultimate Field Guides (Birds). Each is packed with tons of great resources, including profiles and interviews with real Nat Geo Explorers like Eagle Scout and paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, who helped create the new Exploration merit badge. Each chapter sampler was hand-picked because it aligns with certain Cub Scout adventure or Boy Scout merit badge requirements.

Scout leaders can click here for the PDF samplers. Browse them in your browser, or, better yet, click the three vertical dots and the print button. Make copies, and bring these activity sheets to a future meeting.

But is there a patch?

Yes! I almost forgot about the awesome patch.

Scouts who correctly answer questions from the featured book’s chapter sampler are entered to win a limited-edition patch. Click here for details. Scouts may enter only once, and the giveaway closes May 31, 2017. That’s when up to 1,000 Scouts will earn the special patch.

Be sure to have Scouts come back and earn more cool patches in the set, including the Conservation patch in June and the Hands-on-Science patch in September.

Featured book: Nat Geo Ultimate Explorer Guide

This book can help Scouts earn:

  • Tiger Adventure loops: Backyard Jungle and Sky Is the Limit
  • Wolf Adventure loops: Call of the Wild, Digging in the Past and Finding Your Way
  • Bear Adventure loops: Fur, Feathers, and Ferns and Critter Care
  • Webelos and Arrow of Light pins: Adventures in Science, Earth Rocks!, Into the Wild and Into the Woods
  • Boy Scout merit badge: Archaeology, Astronomy, Bird Study, Exploration, Geology, Insect Study, Mining in Society, Nature, Oceanography, Reptile and Amphibian Study, and Space Exploration

Learn more and grab yours at Scout Stuff, where proceeds help support Scouting.

Win a trip to Washington, D.C.

The fun doesn’t stop there. The Nat Geo Kids Explorers Club Sweepstakes offers one lucky winner — plus up to two family members — a chance to win a trip to Washington, D.C., for the 2018 Explorers Symposium. Ten runners-up will score a second-place prize.

Learn more and enter here.

Look for Nat Geo at the 2017 Jamboree

If you’ll be joining the adventure at the 2017 National Jamboree, be sure to stop by the Exploration merit badge area, brought to you by Nat Geo.


About Bryan Wendell 3280 Articles
Bryan Wendell, an Eagle Scout, is the founder of Bryan on Scouting and a contributing writer.