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I may have found our family activity for next month…



Looks like a blast!

25 years ago today the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after launch. All seven crew members of STS-51-L were lost in the accident.

At a memorial service three days later at Johnson Space Center, President Reagan said:

Sometimes, when we reach for the stars, we fall short. But we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain.

All of us have times in our lives when we fall short. They are not all national tragedies, but there are times when we must pick up and try again. As Scouts work their way through the ranks there are many times when things don’t go as planned, are harder than anticipated, or just get off track.

One of the Core Values of Cub Scouting is perseverance, sticking with something and not giving up even if it is difficult. This could be something like not giving up on the Pinewood Derby because they didn’t win the first year, or the shy kid participating in their first skit at the Pack campout.

A parent’s first instinct is often to protect their son from the situation, and rightly so. There is a reason why Tigers have adult partners that help guide them through the first year scouting activities. But as the years progress they need to be given an increasing amount of leeway to try things their way. As they cross over to Boy Scouts they should be a lot further developed in dealing with difficulties as they arise. As I see it, our job as Cub Scout leaders is twofold: first, provide a fun and safe environment where missteps aren’t going to have permanent consequences and second, help the parents ease back a step or two each year as they work their way through the Cub Scout program.

Once they cross over to Boy Scouts this phenomenon doesn’t go away. Scoutmaster Jerry has a post up this week about dealing with the worries about cold weather camping. Not from the scouts, but from their parents. (Spoiler Alert: it comes down to training and trust)

The difference between Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts is the level of independent operation and the level of risk. There’s a good reason we don’t do cold weather camping with Cub Scouts, and why we don’t send our dens off on fifty milers every summer. The area of operations for a scout to practice perseverance and deal with adversity grows over time, but we build up to the big adventures. The Guide to Safe Scouting has age appropriate guidelines to help Scouters know what the Scouts can do as they grow up. Done right, the Scouts build experience, confidence and preparedness, ready to explore the world as young adults.

The members of the Challenger crew were not the first astronauts we lost in our quest to explore, nor were they the last. These and the other astronauts knew (and know) the risks associated with space exploration, and bravely accepted them. Our Scouts cannot make that decision, and we must help guide them until they can.

Ad Astra per aspera

Last year during the 100th Anniversary celebration Scoutsigns did a “100 Days of Scouting” challenge where participants volunteered to do something for scouting every day for 100 days.

100 is a powerful number. 100% is everything. $100 still matters. 100 days is enough time to change lives.

For the next 100 days, 100 Days of Scouting will offer a glimpse of the most significant things I’ve done for Scouting each day.

Every day.

I didn’t participate last year (mostly because I didn’t come across the idea until much, much later), but many people took him up on the challenge.

Well, here it is a year later and the gauntlet has been thrown down again.

This time around I’m on board. 100 Days of Scouting. It will be documented here. Join me. Heck, join us! Starting on February 8, 2011 (BSA’s Birthday), and going for 100 days until May 19th.

As Scoutsigns said:

“The purpose is to record the positive things I do for Scouting each day–big or small. It also makes sure I focus on accomplishing something each day for Scouting. Busy, tired, can’t think of something? Something must be done each day.”

During the year I was the Tiger Den Leader I had a scout come to me and tell me he wanted to learn more about geocaching. I had heard of it before, but had not tried it. As a bit of a gadget freak and someone that loves the outdoors, the more I found out about geocaching the more fun I thought it would be to try with the scouts! The official geocaching website describes it as:

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online…

Have a treasure hunt outdoors with a bit of technology and working in teams? Sounds perfect for Cub Scouts!

We scheduled it for our July den outing (you are doing fun stuff in the summer, right? Right?!?), combining some hiking and geocaching in a half day event for the boys in our den. We gathered at a park area in Evergreen CO, taking over a picnic table to talk about hiking and geocaching. We covered:

• How a GPS works (brief, simplified version)
• Hiking Safety including the Buddy System and what to do when you get lost
• Leave No Trace Frontcountry Guidelines
• Cache In, Trash Out

Within each cache description there may be a hint to help find the “treasure”. In order to read the hint the geocacher must decrypt a simple substitution cipher. Before we set out to find our caches we figured out the hints in each cache team, completing one of the Wolf Electives in the process (1a. “Use a Secret Code“).

After a final reminder on Leave No Trace and the Buddy System, the teams (including an adult) set out to find their assigned geocache.

All the caches were about the same distance from the starting point, and as the groups headed off in the direction the GPS indicated. After about 45 minutes they started returning, and all but one group found their cache.

Boy Scouts have embraced geocaching as another fun activity to get the Scouts outdoors. Just prior to our outing there was an article in the May issue of Scouting Magazine on geocaching with Cub Scouts. It was even included in the 100th Anniversary Celebration activities last year. And don’t forget, the Geocaching Merit Badge was launched last year!

Some of the things we didn’t do (yet) but might be fun to try with a pack or den:

Hiding your own cache: Making your own Cub Scout themed cache, identifying a good place to hide it, then registering and maintaining the hide. It could be revisited a few times during the next few years to show how many people had found it.

Travel Bugs: Travel bugs are small tags with a serial number that can be registered on Geocaching.com. Described as a “hitchhiker” that travels from cache to cache, you can track the Travel Bug’s progress online. You can label the bug with a goal, for example “get to a cache near the Exploratorium in San Francisco” or something similar. This might be a great way to interact with a den or a pack somewhere else across the country, sending Travel Bugs back and forth. I don’t know how long they typically take, but it might be too slow to do more than once or twice. At least it would be fun to track the progress!

Who has tried geocaching activities with their Cub Scouts? Any advice? Pitfalls? Disasters you’d like to share? I think the most difficult part of this outing was finding a location with a number of caches that were of an “easy” difficulty rating and not too far from a central location. Everyone had a great time, and I am sure we will continue to include geocaching in our dens going forward.