Energy is about where our power comes from, how it changes form, and how we can use it more wisely. You'll do experiments, track energy use in your own home, and look at real choices your community faces. What you learn can save your family money too.
Why it's worth it
Every time you flip a switch, ride in a car, or charge a phone, energy is changing from one form to another, and some of it is wasted along the way. This badge helps you see where your family's energy comes from, where it goes, and how to use less without giving up comfort. You'll audit your own home, build a system that converts energy, and understand the choices behind the news stories about power, fuel, and climate.
Start this week
- With a parent's OK, find an article, podcast, or website about using or saving energy and save the link. You'll come back to it at the end for requirement 1.
- Set up a 14-day energy log on the fridge and ask your family to help fill it in starting today.
- Ask your Scoutmaster for the name of an Energy counselor, and contact them with a parent copied.
- Walk through your home and count how many things are plugged in right now, even when they're off.
Plan ahead: Requirement 4 needs a 14-day log, so start it right away. Pick your requirement 1 article or podcast first too, since you'll go back to it after finishing the rest.
Requirements · 8
Every official requirement and part, numbered to match Scouting America, in plain language. Sign off against the official wording (opens in a new tab).
- Requirement 1
Learning from an energy article
Tips for this section: At the start, pick an article, podcast, blog, or website about using or saving energy, and jot down your questions. After the other requirements, go back to it and notice how your understanding has changed.
- Requirement 1a
With a parent or guardian's permission, find an online blog, podcast, website, or article about using or conserving energy; discuss with your counselor what interested you, what questions it raised, and which ideas you didn't understand
- Requirement 1b
After finishing requirements 2-8, go back to your source from 1a and explain to your counselor what you've learned that helps you understand it better
- Requirement 2
Energy forms and conversions
Tips for this section: Look around for things that change energy from one form to another, like a flashlight or a toaster. Then build a simple system with an adult's help.
Example for this section: A simple conversion system: a hand-crank flashlight turns motion into electricity into light. Or wire a small solar panel to a toy motor with a paper fan, so sunlight becomes electricity and then motion, and explain each step.
- Requirement 2a
Explain how three of these devices use energy and the energy conversions in each: cell phone, toaster, lightbulb, sauna, greenhouse, bow drill, electric vehicle, or nuclear reactor
- Requirement 2b
Build a system that performs at least two energy conversions and explain it to your counselor
- Requirement 3
Show your understanding of energy efficiency by explaining to your counselor an everyday example of energy moving through a system to do something useful, covering the following
Tip: Pick something real, like a car, furnace, or light bulb, and figure out how much energy goes to useful work and how much is lost.
For example: Pick an old incandescent bulb: about 90 percent of its energy comes out as heat, not light. An LED makes the same light with far less electricity. Explain where the lost energy goes and why that matters for your bill.
- Requirement 3a
Identify the parts of the system the moving energy affects
- Requirement 3b
Name the system's main energy source
- Requirement 3c
Identify the system's useful results
- Requirement 3d
Identify where the system loses energy
- Requirement 4
Do an energy audit of your home and keep a 14-day log of the steps you and your family took to use less energy; your report must cover the following, and after the 14 days, discuss what you learned with your counselor
Tip: Make a simple daily log on the fridge and have your family help record lights, heating, cooling, and appliances for the 14 days.
For example: Your audit might find a drafty back door, a TV and game console left on standby, and a water heater set too high. Log lights, heating or cooling, and appliance use for 14 days, then try two changes and compare the meter.
- Requirement 4a
List the kinds of energy your home uses (such as electricity, wood, oil, liquid petroleum, natural gas), how each is delivered and measured, and its current cost; OR log trips, miles driven, fuel used, and miles per gallon for your family car or another vehicle
- Requirement 4b
Describe how your family could use energy more wisely, considering the energy behind daily activities like cooking, showering, lights, driving, TV, and computers; explain what sustainable energy sources are and how reusing and recycling can change your energy use
- Requirement 5
In a notebook, describe five ways energy is wasted at your school or in your community and how each could be reduced, and explain what trade-offs in energy use are, including the following
Tip: Notice waste on your way to school or around town, like lights left on or idling cars, and think of a practical fix for each.
For example: Five community examples: cars idling in the school pickup line, a store with doors propped open while the air conditioning runs, lights on in empty offices at night, leaking pipes, and half-empty buses. Suggest a practical fix for each.
- Requirement 5a
Explain how your suggested changes would cut costs, reduce pollution, or otherwise benefit your community
- Requirement 5b
Explain the changes in routines, habits, or convenience needed to reduce the waste, and why people might resist your ideas
- Requirement 6
Make pie charts of the following, and explain to your counselor the key ideas each shows and where your data came from; also explain how the price of a nonrenewable resource affects its use and can make alternatives worthwhile
Tip: Find recent numbers from a reliable government source and draw your pie charts by hand or on a computer.
- Requirement 6a
The energy resources that provide most of the energy used in the United States
- Requirement 6b
How much of the energy the United States uses comes from other countries
- Requirement 6c
How energy use is split among homes, businesses, industry, and transportation
- Requirement 6d
The fuels that generate electricity in the United States
- Requirement 6e
The world's known and estimated reserves of primary energy resources
- Requirement 7
Improving energy systems. Choose 5 of 9
Tips for this section: Choose five types of power production and look up what has made each cleaner, safer, or more efficient.
Example for this section: Choose five systems, like fossil fuel plants, cogeneration, nuclear, wind, and solar, and explain one improvement for each: cleaner smokestacks, plants that put leftover heat to work warming buildings, safer reactor designs, bigger turbine blades, and cheaper, more efficient panels.
- Requirement 7a
Explain what is being done to get more usable energy from biomass digesters or waste-to-energy plants, describing the technology, cost, environmental effects, and safety concerns
- Requirement 7b
Explain what is being done to get more usable energy from cogeneration plants, describing the technology, cost, environmental effects, and safety concerns
- Requirement 7c
Explain what is being done to get more usable energy from fossil fuel power plants, describing the technology, cost, environmental effects, and safety concerns
- Requirement 7d
Explain what is being done to get more usable energy from fuel cells, describing the technology, cost, environmental effects, and safety concerns
- Requirement 7e
Explain what is being done to get more usable energy from geothermal power plants, describing the technology, cost, environmental effects, and safety concerns
- Requirement 7f
Explain what is being done to get more usable energy from nuclear power plants, describing the technology, cost, environmental effects, and safety concerns
- Requirement 7g
Explain what is being done to get more usable energy from solar power systems, describing the technology, cost, environmental effects, and safety concerns
- Requirement 7h
Explain what is being done to get more usable energy from tidal, wave, or ocean thermal energy conversion devices, describing the technology, cost, environmental effects, and safety concerns
- Requirement 7i
Explain what is being done to get more usable energy from wind turbines, describing the technology, cost, environmental effects, and safety concerns
- Requirement 8
Name three careers that use knowledge of energy; for one of them, research its training, education, certification, experience, and costs, plus job outlook, starting pay, and advancement; discuss with your counselor what you learned and whether the career interests you
Tip: Talk with someone at a utility, solar company, or energy office about their job and training.
Places to visit
Ask an adult to set it up, and go with your family, den, patrol, or crew.
A power plant, wind farm, or solar installation
See energy being converted at a huge scale and ask how much is lost along the way.
How: Have an adult contact the utility or operator's community relations office and ask about tours. Some sites have visitor centers.
A recycling center or landfill gas project
Learn how reusing materials and capturing gas from trash saves energy.
How: An adult can call your city or county waste department to ask about tours for youth groups.
Where it can lead
- Energy auditorInspects homes and buildings to find leaks and waste; often certified rather than degreed.
- Wind turbine technicianClimbs and maintains turbines; trained at community colleges.
- Power systems engineerPlans how electricity gets from power plants to millions of homes.
- HVAC technicianInstalls and repairs efficient heating and cooling systems.
- Nuclear power operatorRuns reactor controls; many trained first in the Navy.
Ask yourself
- Where does the electricity in your home actually come from, and how did you find out?
- What change in your family's energy use was easiest, and which was hardest?
- How did your understanding of your first article or podcast change by the end?
- What tradeoffs do you see between cost, convenience, and the environment?
- What energy problem would you most like to help solve?
Good questions to ask your counselor or someone who works in energy
- Where does our region's electricity come from today, and how is that changing?
- What's the biggest energy waster you see in homes?
- How do you balance cost, reliability, and pollution when making decisions?
- Which energy jobs will be needed most in the next ten years?
- What's something about energy that most people misunderstand?
Helpful reads
- Earning a merit badge, step by step, From picking a badge to getting the final signature: how to find a counselor, set up meetings safely, work the requirements, and keep your progress., Youth · Families · 6 min read
- Contacting counselors, experts, and organizations, Email and phone scripts, who to ask for, how to follow up, and how to say thanks, with a parent copied every time., Youth · Families · 7 min read
- Choosing your next merit badge, How to pick a badge you'll actually finish: start with what you care about, balance Eagle-required and just-for-fun badges, and make the most of camp., Youth · Families · 6 min read
For leaders & parents
- Arrange a visit to a power plant, solar farm, or utility control center if one is nearby.
- Encourage Scouts to share their home audit results so the troop can compare ideas for saving energy.
People & places that can help
- Merit badge counselor — Talk with them early; they can explain what's expected.
- U.S. Energy Information Administration (opens in a new tab) — Reliable data on energy sources and uses for your charts.
- ENERGY STAR (opens in a new tab) — Practical tips for saving energy at home.
- Your local utility company — Can help with home energy audits and explain your bill.
- Energy Saver (opens in a new tab) — U.S. Department of Energy tips for saving energy at home.
- Energy Explained (opens in a new tab) — Where U.S. energy comes from and how it's used, with charts you can use for requirement 6.
Pairs well with
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Tips, examples, and questions are ideas from experienced leaders, not extra requirements. Your unit leader or counselor decides when a requirement is complete.