TRICΔMP Clusters

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  • The Cluster Team: responsible for building groups of merit badges into cohesive themes and designing a project based curriculum around it.

Central to our TRICΔMP program would be the merit badge classes themselves and we spent a large amount of time and resources on designing the best possible program. Several components went into our decision making process and I’ll describe some of the biggest decisions and factors below.

Group Size We knew that countless Councils including our own across the country were already offering merit badge classes online with group sizes between 10 and 999. We wanted something different, a group size that was economical yet allowed time for instructors to work with students on requirements. We decided on a group size of 25 it allowed us to have multiple staff per group and allow us to break the groups up into smaller patrols to facilitate the patrol method for completing their requirements.

Camp-In-A-Box Of course we have all been busy and following local guidelines to stay at home, so what did that mean for camp? Normally we would have everyone show up and provide them with the pioneering poles, rope, and other items but with camp operating virtually we decided to curate our programs based on available supplies, and fun festive items. This added another requirement to our merit badge program it had to include items we could procure online and mail to our participants.

Project Based Learning Our final component to building our clusters is we hoped to build the program around a central theme that culminated in a final project. Some of our efforts turned out better than others but all of our clusters had a well defined theme with which to base our lessons around.

Staffing For the first time ever we had the opportunity to pull in staff from all across the world and in fact we found ourselves with staff as far flung as the East Coast. We knew this would be a chance to engage former staff and volunteers who normally would be unavailable. This was a great win for us having the chance to capitalize on talent that was stuck at home and unable to go out.

Our Programs

  • Animal Studies – Environmental Science, Mammal Study, Reptile and Amphibian Study, Pet Care
  • Business – American Business, Entrepreneurship, Public Speaking, Salesmanship
  • Civic Involvement – Crime Prevention, Fingerprinting, Law
  • Entertainment – Digital Technology, Music, Theatre
  • Environmentalism – Environmental Science, Energy, Soil and Water Conservation
  • Hollywood Experience – Animation, Movie Making, Photography, Public Speaking
  • Innovations – Electricity, Inventing, Programing, Robotics
  • Nature – Forestry, Nature, Oceanography, Sustainability
  • Podcasting – Communications, Digital Technology, Public Speaking
  • Public Health – Fire Safety, First Aid, Public Health, Safety, Search and Rescue
  • Trail to First Class – Select requirements for Tenderfoot through First Class
  • Video Game Design – Chess, Digital Technology, Game Design, Programing