Insect Study MB: Req to collect insects

[packsaddle]

Nike, I'll be glad to offer a letter of support. PM me.

[OldGreyEagle]

See, now, I was thinking the Goddess of Victory, but then I thought may be its just a runner angling for an endorsement deal. Either way, good luck, although they may be windmills you are tilting at.

 

BTW, some males I know wear 2 inch heels, but I don't think Tony Lama's are what you meant.

[gcnphkr]

With the exception of butterflies, most insects need to be examined under a microscope (or a good magnifying glass) for species identification. You need to look at mouth parts, the underside of the thorax, wings, etc. This generally involves manipulation with tweezers and needles. Trying to do this with a live, struggling specimen would result in sever injury and would amount to torture. Better to euthanize the creature.

[gcnphkr]

This requirement, done correctly, is a truly daunting task. It would indeed be a simple matter to find 50 species of insects and mount them correctly. However, the identification to species part is far from trivial. Even college entomology classes that require collections do not much exceed this task. I also suggest that the counselor who thinks he/she can judge those identifications must be especially highly trained. Or else the exercise is hopelessly full of undiscovered errors and the boy has learned less than he thinks.

Indeed. I believe my Aquatic Insects course only required us to collect and correctly identify 25 species and that was much more work than your typical term paper. Working through a diagnostic key takes time. Considering the lists of deer, bird, bear, etc. or worse oleander, daisy, cactus, pine tree, etc. that are submitted for their 2-1 Lists. Ask them what kind of deer or if oleander is native to the American Southwest and they go into deer caught in the headlights mode. I'll guess that most insects never get past their common (and generic) name.(This message has been edited by jet526)

[CalicoPenn]

Apparently, the BSA was ahead of the curve on this one - new requirements for Insect Study were released on August 1st and effective January 1, 2009. No longer does one need to collect 50 insects. Instead, the requirement is:

 

Do the following:

Observe 20 different live species of insects in their habitat. In your observations, include at least four orders of insects.

Make a scrapbook of the 20 insects you observe in 4a. Include photographs, sketches, illustrations, and articles. Label each insect with its common and scientific names, where possible. Share your scrapbook with your merit badge counselor.

 

Calico

[packsaddle]

Much more realistic requirements. Good job.

[Gold Winger]

Realistic? What on earth do you mean by realistic? It was attainable for other boys. Boys who were interested in it. I guess every merit badge needs to have the level of difficulty of "fingerprinting."

 

Keep up the trend and communications mb will become "talk to someone" and the camping mb will become, "look at a tent in a store."

[Nike]

Whew! One more letter I don't have to write!

 

 

[packsaddle]

GoldWinger, the new requirements, done completely, are actually MORE informative about insects than the old ones. The actual work involved might be more, now, than there was before - except for those identifications.

http://www.usscouts.org/usscouts/mb/changes/mb065-08.asp

 

And as I wrote earlier in this thread, I doubt that boys who were awarded this MB under the old requirements actually correctly identified 50 different insects to species.

[Gold Winger]

So all a boy needs to really do is go online to bugsrus.com and copy the pictures from 20 different insects and paste them into a scrapbook. Boy, that's hard.

[packsaddle]

GW, if that's all the MB counselor requires, you're right. It'd be no different if the boy collected 50 insects with incorrect identifications. He'd learn nothing from the exercise. The counselor can make all the difference but I'd guess there are very few counselors who can correctly identify insects to species, especially 50 different ones selected by a boy.

[Gold Winger]

Heck, I'm thinking of the shortcuts the boys will take. It says "observe." There's no verification of that. Observe how? Dead in the back of the garage?

 

Back in the 8th grade, I had to do an insect collection for science class. I still have all of the dead and mounted bugs someplace, I know that I had over 50. I think that I learned a lot more by chasing down, stalking and hunting the danged things than I would have just finding their pictures in a book.

 

In case you haven't noticed, every time a merit badge is changed, it gets easier. Every time a requirement gets changed, it is to make it easier.

[packsaddle]

Man, I'm with you on your vigilance against just getting by and making stuff too easy. I see that often but usually among the MB counselors at summer camp or similar situations. But in this case, I think they did a good job and I'm willing to give them credit for it.

[Gold Winger]

Thankfully this is America where you have the right to your opinion, no matter how wrong it is. :-)

[CalicoPenn]

What part of Observe 20 LIVE species of habitat translates to look at a DEAD bug in a garage? I don't get it.

 

You're not suggesting that out Trustworthy Scouts that Keep Themselves Morally Straight would cheat by going online and downloading 20 pictures of insects, are you? Though that could lead to some interesting meetings with the counselor - "Hey, that's a great picture of a Cowboy Beetle you got there - where did you see that?" - "In the park" - "Really, what was the name of the park in Australia that you saw that beetle".

 

Let's face it - people just aren't interested in killing things just to collect them anymore - and with books out there like "Butterflies Through the Binoculars" and "Dragonflies Through the Binoculars", there is less and less reason for people to need to do so.

 

Calico