This year, my elder son graduated from Cub Scouts to Scouts (time flies very fast!) and I signed up to be a counselor for Programming (and Public Health) in his troop.
Today, February 1st, 2020, was Merit Badge Day and I taught 6 scouts what is programming and the basics of programming in Python (and Scratch – but they all knew that already) (and nobody chose Public Health …).
I am now sharing my presentation and a few tips and tricks. Feel free to re-use, improve and give me any feedback to make it better.
Here are the presentation files (they are also on GitHub):
I want to highlight that some content was taken from other counselors who made their presentations available online too:
- Eric Silva‘s BSA Programming Merit Badge STEM on SlideShare (see also his repo of Python programs for this badge on Github)
- Bob Baker’s Programming Merit Badge presentation (and repo on Github)
- Nate Swedberg’s Programming Merit Badge presentation on SlideShare
The Boys Life magazine has also a dedicated page with a lot of resources for this Merit Badge. One of the nice features is that scouts can see the same simple program coded in different programming languages, allowing to compare them. They can be the basis for some of their requirements too.
It was the first time I gave this Merit Badge and having 6 scouts is a good number. You’ll face some issues helping them start programming, especially if all of them are new to programming. Also, it’s interesting to have scouts of approximately the same age: they will have similar reactions and they will be at similar level of programming. I had 5 6-graders and one older scout: the older scout had already a higher level of programming (and he kindly helped younger scouts). Also, big mistake from first-time counselor: do not give them the WiFi password at the beginning of the session! 🙂 Ask them to pre-install Python (if they bring their Windows laptop) and only allow them on internet when coding … You’ll thank me later 😉
I went through Safety, History of programming and Programming today in about 1 hour and 20 minutes, which was a bit too long (despite the good interaction and participation).
Then I programmed with them a converter between degree Fahrenheit to degree Celsius. Typing with them and running the script line by line was a good way for them to understand basic programming concepts like variables, case-sensitivity, functions and branching. The files we used as examples and code are on GitHub. From no knowledge of Python to this temperature converter: about 1 hour.
Finally, I covered Intellectual Property and Career in 10-15 minutes. That’s a little bit short. We had no time to enter into too many details. But scouts will have the additional pointers at the end of the slides and this will be a good introduction already.
Final thought? It’s time consuming to prepare all this material (and I thank the other counselors who shared their material!) but it’s also very rewarding to see children (well, teens) discover programming! I encourage you to share things you like as Scout Counselor!
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