WEBELOS

SCHOLAR ACTIVITY BADGE
National Capital Area Council

The quality that a Webelos leader will find most helpful on this badge is the ability to listen to a boy and praise him for his school accomplishments.  Advance planning is important to make this badge appealing to a 10-year-old.

You will need to find out who works at the school and how the education chain of command works in your locality.  The school secretary can usually be very helpful.  Also, the Education Service Center will be glad to furnish you information.  PTA or PTO officers will also be able to help you get information.  Try to find out some of these things:

What jobs are there at school for the boys to do?

What extra-curricular activities are available?

What community activities is the school used for?

Who are the people on the office staff, cafeteria staff, custodial staff

What are their responsibilities?

What are some of the problems of the school and how can you help?

Most of the work on this badge will be done by the boy in school.  You needn't limit the meetings to discussions.  You might take a trip to a high school and college to show the difference from elementary school.

Den Activities:

Let the boys talk about what's going on in school.  Don't try to change any of their ideas, but guide the discussion in such a way that they will see the value of an education.

Learn about the history of education, how schools developed in America.

Prepare a chart of the school system and explain and discuss with boys.

Discuss & do a den service project for the school.

Invite the parents of Webelos to come to a den meeting dressed in the type of clothes they wore to school.  Have them bring along such things as class pictures, yearbooks, report cards, etc. and allow each ample time to share his/ her school days with the den.

Have a panel of parents with various jobs explain their schooling and training for these jobs

Invite an educator to talk with the den about some of the scholar requirements.

As a den, talk about good study habits.

Have someone from the public library talk about the local literacy project.

Tour a local high school or visit a local college campus.

Play a Newspaper Search game looking for articles about education.

Encourage boys to find out all they can about schools in your community ... the different types and how they work... the problems and opportunities.  Discuss these at a den meeting.  Have the boys make a list of the things they like about school and another list of the things they don't like about school.  Give these lists to the principal.

Have the boys make a daily time schedule and use it to determine if they are making the best use of their time.

Speakers: Teacher, college professor, school principal, librarian

Field Trips:

Plan a trip to the library to have the librarian demonstrate the use of a microfilm or microfiche viewer.

Briefly visit a school board meeting.  Let them know you are coming.  They may be interested to know the boys are working on the Scholar Activities Badge.

Ideas for Pack Meetings:

Exhibit: Chart of school system, old school books alongside current ones.

Demonstration: Oral report on field trip.  Explain chart of school system, oral report on responsibilities of employees of school.

Games:

Intelligence Test -- This test is to see if you can follow directions.  Just concentrate, but remember, you have only 2 minutes.

Read everything before doing anything,

Put your name in the upper right-hand corner of this paper.

Circle the word "name" in sentence number 2.

Draw five small squares in the upper left-hand corner of this paper.

Put an "x" in each square.

Put a circle around each square.

Put a circle around each word in sentence number 5.

Put an "x' in the lower left-hand corner of this paper.

Draw a triangle around the "x" you just put down.

If you think you have followed directions up to this point call out "I have."

Now that you have finished reading carefully, do only number 1 and number 2.

You have finished.  How did you do?

The Magic Square: Using the numbers 1 through 9 only, fill in all 9 spaces (Tic-Tac-Toe) so that the total adds up to 15 in every direction - top to bottom, side to side, and diagonally.

Aptitude Test

If you went to bed at 8:00 at night and set the alarm to get up at 9:00 the next morning, how many hours of sleep would this permit you to have? (one hour)

Do they have a 4th of July in England? (yes)

Why can't a man living in Winston-Salem, N.C. be buried west of the Mississippi? (He has to be dead first.)

How many birthdays does the average man have? (one)

If you have only one match and enter a room in which there is a kerosene lamp, an oil heater and a wood burning stove, which do you light first? (the match)

Some months have 30 days; some have 31. How many have 28? (all of them)

If a doctor gave you three pills and told you to take one every half hour, how long would they last? (one hour)

A man built a rectangular house.  Each side has a southern exposure.  A big bear comes wandering by.  What color is the bear? (white)

How far can a dog run into the woods? (halfway)

What four  words appear on every U.S. coin? (United States of America or In God We Trust)

In baseball, how many outs are in each inning? (six)

1 have in my hand two U.S. coins which total 55 cents.  One is not a nickel.  What are the two coins? (A half dollar - which is not a nickel - and a nickel.)

A farmer had 17 sheet.  All but nine died.  How many did he have left? (nine)

Divide 30 by 1/2 and add 10.  What is the answer? (70)

Take two apples from three apples and what do you have? (two apples)

12 correct -- genius;  8 correct -- normal;  5 correct -- not so good;  3 correct -- back to school!