ScoutHitch
Back to Hitch Guide

Champions for Nature

Cub Scouts · Adventure, Elective

Printable worksheet (PDF)

Champions for Nature helps you understand and protect natural resources. You'll learn where wastewater goes, dig into soil, and look at what affects the air. Then you'll help with a project to care for nature.

Why it's worth it

Champions for Nature helps you see how soil, water, and air keep everything alive, including you. You'll follow water after it goes down your drain, dig into dirt to see what lives there, and find out what makes air dirty. Then you'll help with a real project to protect nature where you live. Small actions, done by lots of people, add up.

Start this week

  1. List five natural resources you used today, like water, wood, or air.
  2. With your adult, find out where water from your sink goes: a treatment plant or a septic tank.
  3. Fill a jar with soil and water, shake it, and let it settle overnight.
  4. Ask your den leader about a conservation project the den could join.

Stay safe

  • Wear gloves when you dig or pick up litter, wash your hands afterward, and let an adult handle anything sharp.

Requirements · 5

Every official requirement and part, numbered to match Scouting America, in plain language. Sign off against the official wording (opens in a new tab).

  1. Requirement 1

    Learn about natural resources

    Tip: Make a list of natural resources you use every day, like water, wood, and air.

    For example: Natural resources include water, soil, trees, air, sunlight, and the plants and animals around us. Pick one and notice every way your family uses it in a day.

  2. Requirement 2

    Find out what happens to wastewater in your community

    Tip: Ask your city or a treatment plant what happens to water after it goes down the drain.

    For example: In many towns, wastewater flows through sewer pipes to a treatment plant, where it's cleaned before going back to a river. Many homes in the country use a septic tank instead.

  3. Requirement 3

    Investigate soil

    Tip: Dig up a bit of soil and look closely with a magnifying glass. What do you see?

    For example: After your soil jar settles, look for layers: sand on the bottom, then silt, then clay, with bits of plants floating on top. Then look for worms and bugs in a shovelful of dirt.

  4. Requirement 4

    Investigate air pollution

    Tip: Talk about what makes air dirty, like smoke and car exhaust, and ways to help.

    For example: Check today's air quality with your adult on AirNow, or wipe a white cloth on a dusty windowsill. Talk about how car exhaust, smoke, and factories affect the air.

  5. Requirement 5

    Take part in a conservation project

    Tip: Join a cleanup, plant trees, or help a nature center with a project.

    For example: Help plant trees in a park, pull weeds at a nature center, or pick up litter along a creek with your den. Then talk about how the place might look in a year.

Places to visit

Ask an adult to set it up, and go with your family, den, patrol, or crew.

  • A wastewater treatment plant

    You'll see the tanks and machines that clean dirty water so it can go back into rivers and lakes.

    How: Have your den leader call your town's public works or utility department and ask if they give tours for young kids.

Talk about it together

  • What did you find in your soil that surprised you?
  • What happens to water after it goes down your drain?
  • What could your family do to help keep the air cleaner?
  • How did the place look after your conservation project, and how did you feel?

Good questions to ask a naturalist or county extension educator

  • What makes soil healthy?
  • Which plants or animals around here need the most help?
  • What can families do at home to protect nature?

Helpful reads

For leaders & parents

  • Ask a county extension office or nature center for a soil or conservation activity.
  • Plan the conservation project with a local park so it meets a real need.

People & places that can help

Pairs well with

Counts toward

More Bear adventures

Tips, examples, and questions are ideas from experienced leaders, not extra requirements. Your unit leader or counselor decides when a requirement is complete.