Search and Rescue Merit Badge Released

The Boy Scouts of America released yet another exciting addition to its growing collection of merit badges bringing it's current total to 130.  This is the third merit badge to be released so far in 2012.  Just over a month ago BSA announced the Kayaking merit badge which followed the Welding merit badge announcement back in February of this year.

The Search and Rescue merit badge has 10 requirements which gets the Scouts introduced to "the hazards you are most likely to encounter while participating in search and rescue (SAR) activities." as well as knowledge on staying found.

Requirement #5 requires the Scout to pass the ICS-100 course (a 3 hour course including exam) by FEMA.

Other requirements involve describing the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) system, latitude, and longitude and use a GPS to locate yourself on a 1:24,000 scale map.

Scouts are required to research and interview someone in the SAR field and plan and carry out a practice hasty search with their patrol or troop.

We're sure this merit badge will be popular among the Scouts.

We just added the 10 requirements for the newly released Search and Rescue merit badge in our Boy Scouting References section.  Check it out!