| "Textiles" is more about the industry and the production of fabrics, not actually sewing things. You can build a loom, if I recall correctly, and weave a placemat or something as one of the requirements. All of my sewing skills I learned in the course of sewing the merit badges and other patches onto my uniform!
Basic knotwork is a requirement nowadays for the lower "rank" badges in scouting (Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, etc...it's really remarkable how paramilitary the whole organization is, looking back on it...Patrol Leader, Quartermaster, Rank Badges), with more advanced rope skillz involved in the Camping and Pioneering badges. I taught a lot of kids how to do square knots and clove hitches at summer camp.
As for Nuclear Science (former Atomic Energy), it's mostly a book-learnin type of thing, although you can build a _model_ of a nuclear reactor out of rubber bands and an oatmeal carton, and you can actually build a working radiation meter out of tinfoil and a coat hanger. Neat stuff.
By far, the coolest badge I ever took was Surveying. One of our Assistant Scoutmasters was a professional surveyor, and he took us out in the field with his instruments and showed us how to really use them, measuring off courses and doing some pretty advanced map work. Learned a reasonable amount of trigonometry, too.
I do think it's a pity that the Scouting movement in this country has come to be so closely associated with intolerance, both religious and sexual. I was a free thinker on matters of religion back then (as I am now), and I mostly just kept my mouth shut. But BSA takes the official position that homosexuals and atheists are incapable of morality, or something like that, and that makes me sad. There is, or at least was, a lot of good in the program, but their official devotion to intolerance and bigotry is impossible for me to support today. |
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