Environmental Science Merit Badge 2012 Lesson Plan

Environmental Science as taught by Nicole Neilson in the summer of the year 2012

Part One
• Welcome the kids to Envi Sci and take roll. Usually I wait like 5 or so minutes so we don’t get any stragglers because that drives me crazy.

• Once again welcome to Envi Sci and make sure that they know that it is a two part class and that this is part one. For those of you who do not know environmental science is a required merit badge. What is a required merit badge? (required for your eagle) And why is environmental science a required merit badge? What do you think?

• After they have given you some answers to why they think that it is required tell them that we are going to learn a little of the history of environmental science to try and figure out more. Now I made index cards with points of the timeline on them found on page 12 of the merit badge book. I would hand these cards out to random scouts, have them go to the front, read them aloud to the class and try and put them in order as I told the story of the history of environmental science. It’s the same material found on page 12ish but I would add more facts and dramatize it a little bit while I explained what was going on in each point. So before you teach this badge please read that and look up stuff on the internet. We would also talk about roughly when each event would happen. Remember when we talked about required merit badges? Well when you get to the point when environmental groups were formed you can talk about the different groups and how two of them joined and became the BSA. So maybe why it is a required merit badge is because it was one of the founding foundations of the BSA and nature conservation was one of the first merit badges.  (REQUIREMENT 1)

• Next we dive into one of the larger requirements. The cursed study areas. Now this is one of the requirements that for some reason the scouts don’t like to do. It is easy but takes time. If you read requirement 4b it says that we need two different study areas and they need to make three twenty minute long visits to each. That is a total of two hours. What I would do is do one area in class together then have them do the other somewhere else in camp (the lake, their campsite, etc…) I would explain how at each visit they need to write down the living and nonliving things around them (noise, weather, smell, types of plants, is the soil damp, is it rocky, are there bugs, animals, etc…) then write down the differences each time. It is very important that they stay the full twenty minutes. I have had scouts see deer, weasels, foxes, bunnies, chipmunks, squirrels, humming birds, and more that they would have not seen if they did not stay for the full time. I would recommend telling them that they can do their observations at the lake when they are fishing or in their campsite when they are just sitting around the propane ring (yay fire ban!). Take the boys out behind the nature lodge kind of above JWP and Meriwether Lewis where there are some logs to sit on and it feels more like you are off in the woods. Have them write down the place, visit number, and time they start/stop. Do an observation together. (REQUIREMENT 4)

• Go back to the Nature shack!

• Talk about careers and how they relate to environmental science. (REQUIREMENT 6) Start out with an environmental scientist then ask them what they want to be when they grow up. Relate each to the environment. BE CREATIVE. It is actually pretty fun. ( ex: athletes have to get their bodies to the best that it can be in the environments that they will be performing in. there once was a basketball team in san Diego that tried to sue a team in Utah because of our home court advantage. We are a dry state and have a high altitude. That affects endurance because there is less oxygen. That’s why lots of athletes do the barometric chamber stuff and come to Colorado and Utah to work out. It makes your heart and lungs stronger.)

• I usually talk about how I really like architecture and how architects relate to the environment and how they use it to their buildings advantage. You don’t build a house out of palm leaves in the mountains. Before any building or construction project can be built you need to have a permit. When the city comes and surveys the land they write an environmental impact statement. Basically this state’s what is being built and how it will affect the environment.  Tell them that the scenario is that now in the area that we just observed they can build any construction project that they want. (basketball court, movie theater, cabins, flush toilet bathrooms, etc…) and they need to write an impact statement (like I am building a bathroom with flush toilets because the kybos just don’t work, this will affect the environment by ….. noise scaring away animals, cutting down trees, making new trails, more people = more litter, stuff like that).  (REQUIREMENT 5)

• Once most of them have finished we do vocabulary! (REQUIREMENT 2) I made strips with the words and strips with their definitions that are laminated.  I have two sets so I would put one set on each table and split the group into two teams. The team at the end with the most correct wins! Wins bragging points that is. They do their thing then when you are done go over them.

• After that we do the Endangered and threatened species report. (REQUIREMENT 3E) I wrote the requirements on a green poster and have two binders with the endangered and threatened species in Utah with all the info they need. Have them write it. It’s pretty self explanatory. Give help if and when needed.

• When they are done have them hand that in to you along with the impact statement and check off the first observation. Then send them over to the same spot to do Area 1 observation 2. Tell them the time and when they are done have them check it off with you. I do that so no scouts just leave early. When they come back remind them to do the other area elsewhere in camp and send them to go do that. They are excused.



Part Two
• Welcome back and roll call. Make sure they are all there for part two.

• We are going to be talking about the greenhouse effect. What is a greenhouse? How does it work? Heat from the sun comes in and gets trapped inside. That is how we can grow plants in the middle of the winter. It is like when you leave the car out in the sun and it gets super hot inside. The earth is a giant greenhouse. What are some common greenhouse gasses? Methane, CO2, Water vapor…. Yes water, clouds! Some of the warmest nights at camp are the cloudy ones. The clouds act like a blanket and keep the heat in. Carbon dioxide is what we breathe out and it comes from our cars and stuff. Methane gas also comes from car emissions but the main producer of methane in the atmosphere is actually livestock, mainly cattle. Mmmmm cow farts.  So how much does the greenhouse affect work? We are going to see.  I do the experiment where you have the two 2liter bottles one is cut in half and both have thermometers. Set them in the sun and go back to them later.

• So we have oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. We also get a lot of junk from the cities, dust storms, fires, etc… That pollution can get into the air and create lots of nastiness like smog and……Acid rain! So talk about acid rain. Go over the PH scale. What can acid rain do? Deforestation, weathering of stone, kills fish in rivers. Pour vinegar into a cup. Explain how vinegar is more acidic so it will show what happens faster. Break pieces of chalk and put into the vinegar. Chalk will bubble and dissolve.

• So how can we prevent Acid rain from happening? Now you can either move on to this or do it at the end. Talk about hybrid cars, turning off lights (electricity from coal), conserving water, and going green, carpooling, biodegradable materials. So what does the word biodegradable mean? Turning back into earth. Plastic is biodegradable it just will take thousands of years, same with Styrofoam. What are some biodegradable products? Some golf balls, air soft pellets, I have a watch that I wear that is, sun chips bags, spoons from a frozen yogurt place called spoon me in Ogden, and some packing peanuts. You can use popcorn for packing if it is unbuttered or salted. Hand out zip lock baggies with a packing peanut in each. One is biodegradable one is not so much. Pour water into each and have the scouts shake them up. One will disappear. Talk about what it is made of. Ask them what they think of biodegrade materials.

• Remember when we talked about weathering with acid rain? Now talk about erosion. Take them out in front of the nature sign and talk about erosion at camp. Have them throw away baggies on the way. Two ways to prevent erosion at camp. Stay on the trails and erosion bars. An erosion bar is like a man made root that helps stop all the dirt from washing away. Plants hold in soil. With their roots. Don’t kill plants

• Go back and talk about oil spills. Remind them of the gulf of Mexico oil spill. Talk about what it does to the animals and everything.  Do the oil spill experiment.

• Talk about thermal pollution. Tell them about how it affects the fish in the area. At a different camp we actually had a goldfish that we would send into hibernation by putting his jar in ice. Dead fish float, sleeping sink. We would warm him up after. I just tell the story now so no fish are harmed.

• Review game! Split into groups. Have them name their teams. Ask review questions and if they get it right they get a point. I would also ask random questions from the stories I told like "what was my fish's name? and what experiment was he a part of?"

• Read the Lorax. It teaches about saving the environment and it is fun. It also keeps the kids entertained during their last observation if you do this then.

• Do last area observation.

• Check everyone off

• Complete!