You wouldn’t buy a car without testing it on the road first.
The same concept is behind Scouting America’s merit badge development process. Launched a year ago, the Scouts BSA Test Lab encourages Scouts and Scouters to kick the tires and offer feedback before a merit badge goes from concept to production.
Here’s how it works:
- The Scouts BSA merit badge committee listens to recommendations from councils and troops about which new merit badges might be popular with Scouts. The committee determines what enters the test lab.
- The committee develops requirements to “earn” that badge.
- Scouts work with an adult volunteer to complete the requirements. Because the merit badge isn’t official, the adult can be any registered volunteer.
- When the requirements have been met, the Scout provides feedback by completing a survey. Feedback includes everything from the difficulty of the requirements to the design of the badge to a report on how fun it was.
- When the survey is completed, the Scout receives a certificate to show they’ve met all the requirements of the prospective badge.
- After about a year of testing and several meetings to discuss the feedback, the committee determines whether to make it an official merit badge.
- If a Scout completes a badge that’s eventually approved by the committee, the Scout automatically receives credit for earning that badge.
“A year gives us an opportunity to make changes to the requirements and really understand what the feedback is telling us,” says Scouts BSA National Director Garfield Murden. “What improvements can we make? Everything in the feedback we receive will be discussed and used to determine if this will become a merit badge.”
Nine merit badges are currently in the test lab:
- Auctioneering
- Wildland Fire Management
- Life Skills
- Sewing and Needlework
- Physics
- Dance
- Psychology
- Competitive Gaming
- Military Service and Veterans
Early results show strong engagement with several badges, Murden says.
Wildland Fire Management, Competitive Gaming, and Military Service and Veterans have generated significant interest, he says. Life Skills has drawn positive attention for its practicality. Murden says the goal is simple: to create better badges by listening to the people who will earn them.
“We’re always trying to improve how we do things, and the test lab is no different,” Murden says.
Scouting America has released the 2025 merit badge rankings. Check out the most popular badges and which badges made the biggest gains.
