Practical resources for Scout leaders, including badge guidance, activity ideas, teaching tips, safety advice and resources to help Scouts develop essential skills.
A teamwork challenge with a twist: teams must complete a series of outdoor tasks while communication is restricted. The activity encourages young people to think carefully, use non-verbal communication and adapt when their usual way of working isn’t available. It needs very little equipment and works particularly well when you want an energetic session without…
A practical outdoor session that introduces young people to the basics of building and managing a small campfire. Rather than simply seeing who can light a fire fastest, this activity focuses on preparation, safe decision-making, teamwork and understanding how a fire behaves. It works particularly well as a supervised outdoor session and can be made…
A fast-moving team activity where young people investigate a fictional outdoor incident, study clues, remember details and work out what happened. It needs very little equipment and can be adapted easily for Beavers, Cubs or Scouts. Activity Overview Time: 60 minutesGroup size: 6–24 young peopleSuitable for: Beavers, Cubs and ScoutsLocation: Indoors or outdoorsMain skills: Observation,…
The outdoors is full of clues. A broken twig, a feather, a footprint or a chewed leaf can tell a story about what has been happening nearby. Scouts don’t need to be expert naturalists to start noticing these details. The Nature Detective Challenge encourages Scouts to slow down, observe their surroundings and look for signs…
Knowing how to give and find a grid reference is one of the most useful map-reading skills for anyone learning outdoor navigation. Grid references allow you to describe a precise location on a map using the numbered grid printed across it. They are widely used in Scouting, hiking, outdoor education, navigation training and the Duke…
Whether you’re learning navigation for Scouting, hiking, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award activities, outdoor adventures or simply exploring the countryside, knowing how to read map symbols is an essential skill. An Ordnance Survey map contains a huge amount of information. Roads, paths, buildings, rivers, woodland, contours, boundaries and other features are represented using symbols and colours,…
A well-organised campsite can make outdoor activities much easier. Campcraft is the collection of practical skills that help Scouts set up, organise and look after a campsite. It includes simple things such as deciding where equipment should go, keeping a working area tidy and making sure useful items are easy to find. The Campcraft Challenge…
Outdoor cooking is about much more than preparing food. Before anything is cooked, Scouts need to think about equipment, ingredients, hygiene, preparation, heat, time and what could go wrong. The Outdoor Cooking Challenge introduces these ideas through a practical planning activity. Scouts work in teams to plan a simple outdoor meal and decide what equipment…
Water is something we often take for granted, but when you’re spending time outdoors, it becomes an important part of planning and preparation. The Water Wise Challenge gets Scouts thinking about how much water they might need, how to protect their supply and why assumptions about finding water outdoors can be dangerous. Rather than collecting…
Making a decision when everything is calm can be easy. Making one when the situation changes, time is limited and other people are waiting for an answer is much harder. The Decision Under Pressure activity gives Scouts a series of short challenges where new information is introduced after they’ve already started making a plan. They…
