ideas about Outdoor Activity pins

[moosetracker 132]

Ok.. If you had to guide people with a speel about the outdoor activity pins what are the highlights you would hit upon, with the cool ideas or beware of these pitfalls.

 

I am running an OWLS training.. All my trainers are more IOLS, with a sprinkle of pre-webelos Leaders.. So it falls to me to do this speel.. I did go to an hour long course at Scouting U and got a few ideas.. I am planning to open it up to discussion in the hopes that others in the group have already tackeled or planned out a few..

 

But, any help I can get, seeing I am not coming at this with memories of when my son did them.. (were they even around in the 90's) I just don't recall my den doing anything outdoorsy, yet we did earn the Webelos badge.. I remember just before crossover, being shocked to find the pack owned tents for Webelos den camping.. I did not even know the Webelos could camp.. I looked at our Webelos leader, and all he said was he wasn't much for camping..

 

The next year in the troop our ex-Webelos Leader and his son got the backpacking bug, buying expensive ultra light equipment for it..

[ASM162 20]

When I had a WEBELOS den many years ago, I did alot of my own research for Forester, Naturalist, and Geology. The Outdoorsman badge seemed to be related to getting the boys out camping.

Now, while I certainly appreciate the outdoors, I do not consider myself very knowledgable when it comes to plant and animal identification.

So, with that in mind, I found places to take the WEBELOS scouts and had the folks who are knowledgable in things related to Forestry, and Naturalist and Geology instruct and guide the boys.

For Forester and Naturalist, I found a nature center that catered especially to WEBELOS scouts. For Geologist, I took the boys to a local cavern, that again, had a program especially for WEBELOS Scouts.

 

Now, of course, I went along and I participated right there with the boys.

 

About a year after crossing over to our Troop, I was asked to help with an OWL training course, and since no one else volunteered for the outdoor group, I reluctantly took it on.

I set up the presentation with:

"Here are the requirements for each activity pin."

"Here is a place that you can go to complete the activity pin."

"Here is something that you can do in your den for one or two of the requirements for each pin." (See below)

 

Forester - I went to our local lumber yard and asked for several scrap pieces of wood. the man in charge gave me samples of poplar, oak , cherry, pine, maple and a few others. I labeled them 1,2,3,etc, and kept an answer sheet. Let the boys look at the samples, touch them, smell them, etc and try to identify them.

 

Naturalist - I found pictures of the poisonous plants and printed them out, so that the boys would know what poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac look like.

We played a game with a ball of yarn where the boys made a "Web of Life" One boy was the sun, one was plant life, one was insect, one was mammal, one was fish, etc. If one part of the chain disappeared, what other life forms would be affected? If the life form that you represented was affected, you had to drop your part of the yarn.

We also played a game where I had pictures of different types of environments. A suburban location, a wooded area, a swamp, a lake, a river, mountains, etc.I laid them on the floor and then I asked the boys to pick a location, other than the suburban scene, and pretend that they were an animal that lived in that environment; and place their foot on that picture. Then, I would come around, and go to the wooded area and say, "A company bought this land, and this environment is going to change and possibly disappear. Is there another place that you can go to to live?" If they could live in another environment, they would move to that picture. If the animal that they represented could not live in another environment, thay may die off. Many of the boys ended up in the suburban area. It was a nice way to show that that is why sometimes wild animals are encroaching on human turf, or vice versa.

Geologist - I had container filled with sand and added water to it, to demonstrate erosion. I also had some rock samples that the boys could identify.

Outdoorsman - We practiced setting up tents, and worked on knot tying. Like I said, this was more camping related, as I remember.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but that was wat I shared with the participants in the OWL traing course.

Hope it helps.

[moosetracker 132]

Thanks so much ASM.. Extremely helpful.. In my own reseach I came across the web site describing the Web of Life game, I thought about it as an intro to the Leave-No-Trace presentation I also am doing. But, looked at the time it too to play, and it would have eatten up too much time..

 

But I never thought about it being an example of the outdoorsmen Activity pin. It would be a great game for the Webeloes to play at a den meeting!

 

All the other ideas are great too..

 

I feel the same way you do about the plants/animal id. Where can I find someone with knowledge to present it for me? I do like the dichotomous Key for trees & shrubs.. It is a way to show those of us who don't know how to take others who don't know through plant identification.. The blind leading the blind and figuring it out..

[ASM162 20]

Moosetracker -

Where I live in Central PA, the county parks are great resources, and surprising, at least to me, is the fact that they have scout programs already in place.

We worked on the Forester and Naturalist activity badges concurrently, and were able to complete the requirements for both in one very long day. We were outdoors most of the time, so it diddn't SEEM to take all day. This was something that I had come across in my search for help with these badges.

The Geologist Badge, I found a local cavern (tourist attraction), that had a WEBELOS program already in place. Again, within a day, the boys were able to complete all of the requirements.

The only downfall to this is the fact that it has a cost involved. But I figured that that is why we do fundraisers.