WEBELOS

Activites
Viking Council

Visit the municipal offices of the city engineer or surveyor. Look at a map of your town and try to find your house. Look at some of the surveying equipment and learn some of the simple math calculations.

Tour the city water works, sanitary facility or recycling center. Ask about the current workload, and the kinds of daily activities that go on. How do they handle emergencies?

Visit an operating draw-bridge, grain elevator, ship or train loading operation, or other large industrial operation involving large cranes or other lifting equipment.

Visit a jeweler and look at various gems under the microscope. How does the pattern affect the way a jewel is cut?

Invite someone from the Orienteering Club to bring some topographical maps to your meeting. Learn how to read a map, picking out landmarks.

Ask your local Boy Scout troop to give a demonstration of some of the skills needed for the Pioneering Merit Badge. One particular item of interest would be to see a rope monkey bridge being lashed together.

Ask Webelos to look through books and magazines at home and bring in pictures of bridges. Note the differences in construction

Ideas for Den Meetings
Mt. Diablo Silverado Area Council

Invite a civil, electrical, mechanical or chemical engineer to the meeting to discuss his/her occupation.
Visit an office of civil engineers.
Obtain a blue print of a building and ask an engineer to discuss the plans. Then tour the building.
Visit a chemical production plant.
Visit a college engineering department.

This is an interesting experiment. Prepare a box of Jello as directed on the box. Pour it into an oblong pan and let it set. Use this as a base for this experiment. Build another base out of clay. Build several small bridges out of toothpicks and marshmallows. Place half of the bridges on the Jello base and the other bridges on the clay base. Shake them both. This will show how different bases perform in an earthquake. Also try a base of wet sand.

Define what an engineer is and the types of things he might do as part of his/her occupation.

After helping the Scout define what an engineer is, have boys w rite as the other list occupations engineers might hold and what they do on a large sheet to mount on the wall of the meeting room. You will find ideas on page 268.

Do this in small groups. Have someone write it down. Compare the results when all of the groups have finished. Discuss why the results were the same of different. Ask the Scouts why people have and measure property lines. Ask the Scouts if there is a way that they could measure the property line and be sure of the results and what might happen if the line were measured wrong.

Measure the dimensions of the room you meet in using a ruler, yardstick, and a tape measure in small groups. Compare results and discuss measuring experiences and problems. Equate their experiences with what an engineer might do as a part of his work.

Obtain a simple doll house kit from a craft store. Have one Scout read the instructions and supervise the building (The Scouts' jobs might change as they find they are better at some skills than others), one assemble the tools and keep the materials straight, two build, etc. After the house is built, paint will need to be obtained (ask for donations), shingles attached, and of course the inside will need to be decorated.

The Scouts will work together and discuss each stage of the building. Try to stand by with assistance if needed and to record decisions made by the group.

They might wish to extend the activity by making furniture for the inside. Imagination is the only limit to the way the Scouts can make the furniture.

When the house is completed, what will you do with your house? Set it to a vote of the members of the den. (Citizenship Activity Badge). Possibilities are putting all of the boys' names in a hat for a drawing, or donating it to a sick child or a school (giving the den its year's service project).