My son and I had a lot of fun working on this merit badge together. With the time frame we were working with we needed to do requirement 8c which was to create a mock dig. I use the link below to learn how to make it as realistic as possible. I basically buried items that someone 100 years from now might find from our time period which might include:
*Cell Phone (I put an old phone in a ziploc bag)
*DVD
*Pop can or other food item wrapper
*A toy that is popular today
*A tool commonly used today
I was trying to find anything that particularly dates us. I buried these things at different levels and we used the record form from the website below to keep track of what we discovered. The funny thing was that we also found other items that I had not buried in our backyard soil from when our house was built. If you have multiple scouts or children working on this project try to give them their own space. They thoroughly enjoyed this project. I would also bury a lot of items. They could have done this all day!
http://www.archaeological.org/pdfs/education/digs/Digs_Record_Sheets_Simple.pdf
Ideas for requirement 9b might be to:
*Make a pair of moccasins (you can buy a kit)
*Make a spear with an arrowhead
*Start a fire with flint and steel
*Start a fire with a bow drill
Have fun and let me know if you have any ideas that were fun for you too.
