Merit Badge

DALLAS, Texas—September 7, 2011)—Scouts will be able to add a new patch to their merit badge sash—a patch for playing a game. However, it’s a game that requires critical thinking skills, deep concentration, and abstract reasoning. The Boy Scouts of America will introduce the Chess merit badge in September, encouraging Scouts to enjoy an ancient game while acquiring life skills necessary for today.

Requirements for achieving the Chess merit badge include things such as learning scorekeeping using the algebraic system of chess notation and explaining the four rules for castling. Additionally, Scouts must teach someone else how to play chess, play in a chess tournament, or organize a competition.

“The chess community is excited about this new merit badge from the Boy Scouts of America,” stated Bill Hall, executive director of the United States Chess Federation (USCF). “We believe that chess has the potential to positively impact young people from every background.”

Full announcement from Scouting.org

From http://blog.ScoutingMagazine.org...

 

UPDATE (3:15 p.m. Jan. 13): Bill Evans, Youth Development team leader with the BSA, tells Cracker Barrel that these merit badges will count as electives for rank advancement. As if you needed another reason to get your guys to earn these.

A merit badge called Computers would sound just a crazy to a 1910 Boy Scout as a merit badge called Tracking sounds to Scouts today. That’s because the BSA’s list of available merit badges has evolved through the years as the interests of boys have changed.

In honor of the BSA’s 100th Anniversary, though, today’s generation of Scouts will get the unique opportunity to experience some of the activities their predecessors enjoyed. That’s possible thanks to the BSA’s new Historical Merit Badge Program, a set of four discontinued merit badges that today’s Scouts can earn.

Boys can earn any or all of these merit badges:

Signaling

• First offered in 1910 and discontinued in 1992.
• Sample requirements: build a simple buzzer or blinker capable of sending Morse code messages, and send a message of at least 35 words; send and receive messages using semaphore flags at a rate of at least 30 letters per minute.

Tracking

Boy Scouts of America reissued all merit badge pamphlets on August 1. There are changes to requirements for some of the merit badges but not all of them. The ones with updates to the requirements are:

The changes do not officially take effect until January 1, 2009 but Merit Badge Counselors may allow Scouts to use the new requirements prior to that date.