Environmental Science
Requirements fro Environmental Science merit badge from ? to January 1,
1998:
- Explain the meaning of the following: ecology,
biosphere, ecosystem, plant succession, limiting
factor. Give an example of each.
- With the help of your counselor, pick an area of 10
acres* for study.
- Visit the area four times for 2 hours each time. Do
this at different times on one day a week for a month,
or if at camp, on four different days of the week at
different times of the day.
- Record the temperature, rain, and wind.
- List the animals you saw. Tell what they were
doing.
- List the plants you saw.
- Name the kinds of rocks and soil.
- Write about your study in 500 words or more showing:
- How the climate, topography, and geology have
influenced the number and kinds of plants and
animals.
- How the living and nonliving elements are
interrelated.
- Why it is important that people understand this.
- With your counselor, plan and carry out a project in
ONE of the following:
- The effect of water-holding capacity of soil on
plant life. The relation of plant cover to
runoff, how both are related to the water and
oxygen cycles.
- The influence of land plant life on temperature,
light intensity, wind velocity, and humidity. The
influence of water plant life on the water
environment. How both land and water plants affect
animal life.
- Make a report, in the form of a short talk to a Scout
group, on what you did in requirement 5.
- Show you understand the following:
- The causes of water pollution. Tell what it does to
rivers and lakes.
- The causes of land pollution. Tell what it does to
the environment.
- The causes of air pollution. Tell what it does to
the environment.
- How some chemicals get into the tissues of animals
miles from where they were used.
- Describe what you and others can do to help solve a
local problem of air pollution, Water pollution, or
litter.
- Describe the duties of three positions in environmental
science.
* City Scouts may pick an area in a large park,
if a better
place is not available.
Requirements: