Here’s the reason behind those major Chemistry merit badge updates

One of Scouting America’s oldest merit badges has undergone a major update to make it more accessible to today’s Scouts.

Chemistry, one of the original 57 merit badges offered when the organization was founded in 1911 and one of the 11 that have used the same logo continuously since then, has a whole new set of requirements developed by a team led by Kristin Omberg, a chemist and Scouts BSA volunteer in Richland, Washington.

The updated requirements are available online now. Scouts can begin work on them immediately.

An updated printed pamphlet is expected to be available later this year.

Omberg says she and her team of fellow chemists and adults and youth involved in Scouting wanted to make it obvious how relevant chemistry continues to be in today’s world — not just for scientists in labs but also for kids participating in Scouting and other activities.

“While lots of people think that chemistry and other sciences are challenging or hard, they’re already doing chemistry every day,” Omberg says. “They are demonstrating the fundamental principles every time they light a fire. Or every time they cook something.

“It’s not just an academic topic. It’s the basis of so many things that people already do.”

Why was the Chemistry merit badge updated?

Paul Winston remembers earning the Chemistry merit badge on his way to earning the rank of Eagle Scout when he was a youth. He says the experience was one of the things that led to him becoming a chemist — he worked for decades as a materials research scientist for Michelin tire manufacturing before retiring in 2020.

As a member of Scouting America’s National Merit Badge Subcommittee, Winston serves as the team leader for the STEM-related merit badges.

“We wanted to motivate more Scouts to earn the badge in order to maybe excite them toward a career in my favorite profession: chemistry,” Winston says.

Winston and his team decided Omberg, a senior technical advisor for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a merit badge counselor and the mother of a Scout, was the person who could best make it happen.

“I thought it would be great to make this into something that resonates more with youth,” she says. “That’s why we got to organizing it around cooking, camping and first aid, because those are three Eagle-required, fundamental merit badges, and all of them have a lot of chemistry going on in them.”

What are some of the new Chemistry requirements?

The new Chemistry merit badge requirements are designed to be hands-on and can be completed with the help of a merit badge counselor who’s familiar with the basics of the topic.

Requirement 2, “Chemistry and First Aid,” has Scouts perform one experiment that involves washing their hands with soap as opposed to washing their hands with water only and a second experiment that uses baker’s yeast to demonstrate how rubbing alcohol affects microbial growth.

The results of both experiments go a long way toward proving why soap and rubbing alcohol are used to clean cuts and scrapes.

Requirement 3, “Chemistry and Cooking,” has Scouts perform an experiment that helps them learn how cooking food changes its makeup.

And requirement 4, “Chemistry and Camping,” has Scouts perform experiments to explore the chemistry behind making items waterproof, building campfires and more.

“Chemistry is not just an academic topic,” Omberg says. “It’s the basis of so many things we do.”