Wow! I missed this the first time around, but it doesn't sound easy for old people never mind young ones. :-)

Haha Chris,- what makes you assume that activities should be made easier for Scouts than they would be for adults ? I find youngsters of Scout age quite capable of doing many thing their parents would never dream of trying, and in some cases probably most adults could not manage...

The idea behind these badges is to be worthwhile, and to do that also means it involves quite a bit of effort.  The survival-skills one for example I like doing with our youngsters would cause most parents to to struggle.

 Given your background, what do you think to the difficulty of this one air-or-sea-navigation   I think there are a few adults who would struggle.

Mike

mapj1 said:

I find youngsters of Scout age quite capable of doing many thing their parents would never dream of trying, and in some cases probably most adults could not manage

Absolutely second that!!!! When I was involved in STEM education, probably the biggest battles I had (and our superb local STEMNET coordinator had) was trying to persuade adults, including sadly often teachers, that just because they didn't understand how to solve a challenge didn't mean the kids weren't going to work it out. On the flip side, the really inspirational teachers I came across in this work tended to be those who were keen to learn new skills themselves, but accepted that often the kids would pick them up quicker than they would. 

I don't know if our capacity to learn genuinely does drop off as we get older, or whether it's just that we get too distracted by other things - I suspect that one of the big advantages kids have (at least up to mid / late teens) is that they'll .often happily have a go at things just to have a go at them, rather than over-thinking "what's the point" and having a beer instead!

Andy Millar said:

I find youngsters of Scout age quite capable of doing many thing their parents would never dream of trying, and in some cases probably most adults could not manage

Totally agree.  As engineers we face and overcome challenges all the time.  Some of the skills learnt at Scout's will help them become the engineers of the future. 

Andy Millar said:

I find youngsters of Scout age quite capable of doing many thing their parents would never dream of trying, and in some cases probably most adults could not manage

Totally agree.  As engineers we face and overcome challenges all the time.  Some of the skills learnt at Scout's will help them become the engineers of the future.