Introduction to Merit Badges
You can learn about sports, crafts, science, trades, business, and future careers as you earn merit badges. There are more than 100 merit badges. Any Boy Scout may earn them.
Pick a Subject. Talk to your unit leader (Scoutmaster) about your interests. Read the requirements of the merit badges you think might interest you. Pick one to earn. Your unit leader will give you the name of a person from a list of counselors. These individuals have special knowledge in their merit badge subjects and are interested in helping you.
Scout Buddy System. You must have another person with you at each meeting with the merit badge counselor. This person can be another Scout, your parents or guardian, a brother or sister or other relative, or a friend.
Call the Counselor. Get a signed merit badge application from your unit leader. Get in touch with the merit badge counselor and tell him or her that you want to earn the merit badge. The counselor may ask to meet you to explain what is expected and to start helping you meet the requirements. You should also discuss work that you have already started or possibly completed.
Unless otherwise specified, work for a requirement can be started at any time. Ask your counselor to help you learn the things you need to know or do. You should read the merit badge pamphlet on the subject.
Show Your Stuff. When you are ready, call the counselor again to make an appointment. When you go take along the things you have made to meet the requirements. If they are too big to move, take pictures or have an adult tell in writing what you have done. The counselor will test you on each requirement to make sure you know your stuff and have done or can do the things required.
Get the Badge. When the counselor is satisfied that you have met each requirement, he or she will sign your application. Give the signed application to your unit leader so that your merit badge emblem can be secured for you.
Requirements. You are expected to meet the requirements as they are stated—no more and no less. You must do exactly what is stated in the requirements. If it says “show or demonstrate,” that is what you must do. Just telling about it isn’t enough. The same thing holds true for such words as “make,” “list,” “in the field,” and “collect,” “identify,” and “label.”
The requirements listed here are the official requirements of the Boy Scouts of America. However, the requirements presented here might not match those in the Boy Scout Handbook and the merit badge pamphlets, because these requirements are updated only when the Boy Scout Requirements book is updated. The only significant difference is that as new merit badges are introduced, the requirements are posted here.
If you have already started working on a merit badge when a new edition of the pamphlet is introduced, you may continue to use the same merit badge pamphlet and fulfill the requirements therein to earn the badge. You do not need to start all over again with the new pamphlet and revised requirements.
Merit Badge Requirements
Click Here to see the current list of all BSA Merit Badges that are currently approved. You can then click each subject to see the requirements for that merit badge.
