Another amazing weekend for our Earth Tribe participants and leaders. The weather was mostly great, perfect temperatures for camping with rain late on Saturday but nothing to dampen our program.
This weekend, Scouts worked on and completed the forestry and pulp and paper merit badges. We had leader Jessica Kouba present the pulp and paper program, setting up the Scouts to make their own paper on Friday night and work on other requirements with a virtual field trip on Saturday.
On Saturday, participants and leaders took a field trip to Altama Plantation Wildlife Management Area to earn their forestry merit badges. Two rangers from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources took us on a tree and plant ID tour, learning which ones were snackable and which were not. They were also taught about how to measure and do a tree count, how to do a core and calculate the age of a tree and its various growth periods. They learned about forest fires and fire fighting and how to get a career in forestry.
Back at camp, Scouts started working on their conservation project proposals, doing more site visits, doing some book research, and consulting with leaders to talk through their ideas and steps. Forward progress was made, and we look forward to having some projects to work on at our next weekend in February.
On Sunday, Scouts and leaders participated in the workshop to earn their Outdoor Ethics Awareness Award. The workshop is designed to give practical applications to the seven Leave No Trace principles. Scouts worked in groups and all adults in one team to plan a camp menu and identify how to reduce waste, why it’s important to leave what you find, how to build a mound fire and properly put out a campfire, and how things in nature are like us and how they benefit us. In total, 16 Scouts and nine adults completed all requirements for their award.
Scouts also continued working in their nature journals, visiting two sites each weekend to track changes between visits including wildlife, plants, and anything else they notice. There was also a little fun with wildlife after a snakeskin was pulled from the rafters of one of the bathrooms.
This was also the first weekend of camping at our new home in the Choctaw campsite, a site the group worked many hours to clean up and do repairs on our initial weekend. There’s still some work to be done, but it’s definitely coming along.
Between the two weekends, Scouts also worked on building eco bricks, plastic drink bottles filled with non-recyclable plastics. The bricks needed to make a certain weight, which was quite the challenge to build over the six weeks. Not all bricks turned in made the cut, but Scouts were able to visually see their plastic waste and rethink some of their at-home choices.
