COMPLETE - Ocean Life

Ocean Life BadgeThe Ocean Life Badge came from an activity book from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Response and Restoration Marine Debris Program (wow, what a long name). It can be found at online at the NOAA site. In our July Troop Meeting, we did several of the activities in our meeting, then took it home to finish it.

First we all worked on our own to do several pages. 

• The Tons of Trash Word Find wasn't too hard; I got that one pretty easily.
• The Types of Marine Debris was harder. I had to look at the answers for SIX-PACK and CRATE.
• The Source of the Problem picture pick was easy. People are the sources of ocean trash.
• Learn to Be a Drain Brain Secret Code was pretty straightforward too.
• I liked the Sea Turtle Connect the Dots - sea turtles are pretty awesome.
• How Can I Help Phrase Unscramble - again, not too hard - COASTAL was the hardest word.
• Getting to the Trash Can Maze, well, I cheated on that one, solving it from the End to the Beginning, but it was still pretty hard. It sounds like other Scouts also struggled with it.

We did some of the activities together.

• Cleaning Up the Beach Mad Libs was fun to do together, and it was silly.
• Marine Match Up Memory Game was better than I thought it would be. Another Scout and I combined our memory game pieces and played with a double set, so it was a little more challenging.

We also watched some videos together about the ocean. This was an activity I led; I've been starting to lead more activities at our Troop Meetings.

• PBS Science Trek Oceans - https://www.pbs.org/video/science-trek-oceans/
• Incredible Facts About The Ocean - https://youtu.be/0neCsH7jAeI
• Ocean Animals for Kids - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOJkvhSpBiQ
• Bill Nye The Science Guy on Ocean Currents - https://youtu.be/w_8mw-1HYFg
• Dr. Universe Salty Ocean - https://www.pbs.org/video/nwptv-presents-dr-universe-salty-ocean/
• Is it OK to Pee in the Ocean? - https://www.pbs.org/video/is-it-ok-to-pee-in-the-ocean-fwxfbt/
• Narwhal Song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31UPRhiixco

And then the last thing to do was to take the packet home and color the three coloring pages, Diver Cleanup, Beach Cleanup, and Go Fish! I actually put these off for a few days because I found I kind of resented having to color them for some reason. I guess I'm not that big a fan of coloring after all. But I finally sat down to do them, because I want to get this badge. I started with the Diver Cleanup, and because I was cranky about it, colored pretty messily, but colored the whole thing. It's nothing special. For Beach Cleanup, I decided I would grab color pencils at random from my case, and would use every one of them. Making it more of a game made it more fun, and I enjoyed that one okay. I was still messy with it. For Go Fish, I decided to only color the important things, and leave everything else uncolored. So I colored the kids and the fish and frog, and their fishing pole and bucket.

So now I've finished my workbook, and can order my Ocean Life Badge!