Introduction

Wilderness Survival is an important merit badge.  The knowledge and skills that are gained while working on this badge allow you to prepare for emergencies in wilderness situations.  It will instill in you the confidence that you can take care of yourself and others during an emergency.  By learning how to survive in multiple circumstances is a great example of the Scout Motto "Be Prepared".  This Merit Badge will help you learn the proper skills and the knowledge of the right gear to have in *advance* of an emergency - which can make all the difference between life and death.

The first step towards earning any merit badge is to read the Merit Badge pamphlet!  If you don't understand something, ask your Merit Badge councilor!

Use the Merit Badge workbook from Meritbadge.org (link is below).  This workbook will help you organize the requirements and to present those requirements to your Merit Badge councilor.  If at any point you have a question or are not sure of what has been covered or what needs to be done, ask your councilor.

Requirements

The following is a link to Meritbadge.org's wilderness survival worksheet:

        Meritbadge.org Worksheet

1. Show that you know first aid for, and how to prevent injuries or illnesses that could occur in backcountry settings, including hypothermia, heat reactions, frostbite, dehydration, blisters, insect stings, tick bites, and snakebites.
2. From memory, list the seven priorities for survival in a backcountry or wilderness location. Explain the importance of each one with your councelor.
3. Discuss ways to avoid panic and maintain a high level of morale when lost, and explain why this is important.
4. Describe the steps you would take to survive in the following conditions:

   a. Cold and snowy

   b. Wet (forest)

   c. Hot and dry (desert)

   d. Windy (mountains or plains)

   e. Water (ocean, lake, or river)

5. Put together a personal survival kit and explain how each item in it could be useful
6. Using three different methods (other than matches), build and light three fires.
7. Do the following:

   a. Show five different ways to attract attention when lost.

   b. Demonstrate how to use a signal mirror.

   c. Describe from memory five ground-to-air signals and tell what they mean.

8. Improvise a natural shelter. For the purpose of this demonstration, use techniques that have little negative impact on the environment. Spend a night in your shelter.
9. Explain how to protect yourself from insects, reptiles, and bears.
10. Demonstrate three ways to treat water found in the outdoors to prepare it for drinking.
11. Show that you know the proper clothing to wear in your area on an overnight in extremely hot weather and in extremely cold weather.
12. Explain why it usually not wise to eat edible wild plants or wildlife in a wilderness survival situation.

Personal Survival Kit

You can have a lot of fun building a survival kit.  You get to collect gear and items that are designed to keep you safe when your life might be at stake.  The goal of the PSK (Personal Survival Kit) is to include items that are useful in during an outdoor emergency.  These items are specifically geared towards providing you with shelter, water and food.  Each item that you collect will probably have multiple potential uses.  You don't want your kit to be to large, as you are not likely to carry it when you go hiking, camping, backpacking, canoeing, etc.  This is the primary reason that each item must have more than one use - you carry less items, keep your kit smaller, which then means you will actually *carry* your kit.

Doug Ritter from the Equipped To Survive Foundation (http://www.equipped.org) has spent a lot of time and thought in developing a small personal survival kit.  While Doug was a pilot, he observed that many pilots were simply not prepared for emergency situations.  He developed a kit for his own plane and then realized a good survival kit is critical in many situations.  He even has one for *every day* use.  He has designed many PSKs for different situations, including a Mini PSK.  He has allowed us to reproduce the contents of his Mini PSK on this site. This list will be the basis for building your own PSK for the Wilderness Survival Merit Badge.   Doug has also worked with Adventure Medical Kits to create a pocket-sized survival kit that contains most of the items needed. 

Requirement 7 - Do the following:
        1. Show five different ways to attract attention when lost.
        2. Demonstrate how to use a signal mirror.
        3. Describe from memory five ground-to- air signals and tell what they mean.

Requirement 8 - Improvise a natural shelter ...  Spend a night in your shelter

Coming soon