Proposed Merit Badge: Urban Survival

Usually Scouts go camping in the woods or the the weeds, eat burned food from a smoky fire and shiver through the night.

Not this trip.

We stayed at the 100-year-old Marks Scouting Resource Center in downtown Philadelphia.

 We ordered Chinese food delivered in...

...and we played dominoes and Uno. 

Not to mention hide and seek and tag.

Never even got around to the movie we planned to watch.

Next morning, after eating breakfast without a single embedded insect, we went on a history safari. Here is the group outside Independence Hall.

We took up a whole row on the Independence Hall tour, but we weren't the only scout troop at the park. 

Here are the most historic scouts in the most historic room of the most historic building in the most historic city of the US.  At least that's what they told us.

We checked out the Presidents' House, Ben Franklin's grave, Christchurch, Franklin Court,

and the print shop.

And, of course, we had to be tough-looking at the Liberty Bell. 

Out of the nine boys on the trip, only a couple had been to any of these sites.

Then we started thinking about the kind of merit badges that would work in the city, and we came up with Urban Survival.  Hey, there is a Wilderness Survival, right?

Requirements: improvise an all-weather shelter.

Practice sustainable methods to hunt for and gather food.

Demonstrate understanding of proper clothing for the urban environment.

Successfully navigate from A to B in the urban setting.

Oh, the possibilities...