The Badge Archive

Items needed:

• Peanut butter (or alternatives like sunflower butter, almond butter, soy butter, or natural homemade glue)
• Craft/popsicle sticks or blunt plastic butter knife
• Birdseed
• Toilet Paper or Paper Towel rolls
• Twine
• (Optional) Plastic bags that can hold the birdseed covered roll for scouts to take home without causing any messes
• Print a copy for each scout of the 1st page in Make the World a Better Place Pledge Sheet document. (The one with the globe and no hand.)
• White paper, pen/pencil, scissors, and glue for each scout
• Print and cut out a copy of Service Cards
• A device to play and pause music

Recycled Bird Feeders

Fun Activity: Make a Toilet Paper Birdfeeder

(Requirement 2 Earned)

World Pledge

Information Needed: We’ve just made bird feeders to help the birds. Helping can be fun but sometimes it’s hard. It’s important to always work as helping others and making the world a better place. Even small actions we take can help the entire world. When we save water or energy, reuse items, recycle – it counts. If everyone did them the world would be a much better place. When we educate others, we help them know something they didn’t which helps them make good choices too. When we garden, plant native trees and flowers, we make the environment better.

Action Needed: Use the Make the World a Better Place Pledge Sheet and have them trace their hands on the blank paper. They cut out their hand shape and then write what they will pledge to do to make the world a better place. Glue the hand on the globe and they can take it home to put it in a place they can always remember their pledge.

(Requirement 3 Earned)

Service Walk

Information Needed: We make the community better every time we help others and give service. There are a lot of ways you can give service, in just about any place you go.

Action Needed: Use the Service Cards and place them on the floor in a circle. Scouts will go around the circle as music plays. When the music stops, everyone needs to find a card to stand on. Then ask each scout to think of one way they can give service where or to who or about whatever the card they are standing on is.

(Requirement 1 Earned)

Meeting End

Scouts can keep playing the service walk until it’s time to go home. You can turn the papers over and write your own topics to change up the game too!

General Notes

Note to Leaders – No Basic Plan compiled by The Badge Archive will earn multiple badges in one level. Part of being budget friendly is not costing more than the price of one official GSUSA badge per meeting.

Some badges will take two meetings to finish. This helps scouts enjoy activities and keeps the troop budget in mind by only needing one GSUSA badge for every two meetings. Troops may choose to get a fun patch for one of the meetings if scouts want a badge/patch for every meeting. Scouts can earn the fun patch if they only attend one meeting and get a fun patch and the official badge if they go to both.