Camp Winnebago, Rockaway NJ  – April 25-6

Great fun, great fishing and great weather! 

At this month’s Pack meeting (calendar) we will have a special presentation from Central Jersey Technical Rescue.

Central Jersey Technical Rescue, Inc. is a volunteer organization that responds to search and rescue missions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Central Jersey Technical Rescue is a not-for-profit Search & Rescue Team dedicated to the promotion of professional knowledge in fields related to search and rescue. CJTRT is comprised of 28 non-paid professionals interested in all aspects of search and rescue – the humanitarian cause of saving lives – throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. “…that others may live.”

Another website I’ve come across through the Cub-L email group. This site has links for all the Program Helps, Baloo’s Bugle and other sources for activities and events to coincide with the monthly themes.

http://www.scoutingthenet.com/Training/Roundtable/Handouts/

(from the Percival Blakeney Academy blog)

There are all kinds of reasons why nature study doesn’t get done. The weather is bad, the kids aren’t done with “real school,” you don’t feel like you know enough to lead them in exploring, you’ve moved and don’t know the animals here, you feel intimidated by other families who seem to do more, and on and on. I’ve especially noticed this within Cub Scouts. Leaders who feel intimidated by their lack of nature background struggle to plan outdoor camping trips and daytrips. The less the boys are in the outdoors as Cub Scouts, the harder it is for them to adapt to being outdoors as Webelos and Boy Scouts.
It is possibly more fun to do nature study on a tropical island than snowed in for the fourth straight month. But nature study has more to do with cultivating a sense of wonder and curiosity than with memorizing taxonomy. The wonders of the eye excite the mind and then the new knowledge illuminates what we see.
I’d never heard of a composite flower before trying to identify a small red flowered weed near our fence. Now I see them everywhere. Once I’d worked out the scientific name of our sensitive plant as mimosa pudica, I realized that it had related plants all over the neighborhood, even though some of them were more tree sized.
Check out the Learning in the Great Outdoors blog carnival, hosted this month by Heart of Harmony. It has links to Green Hour Challenges, blog posts about nature study, and various nature education sites. Lots there to think and grow on. Links to past and future carnival editions are available at Learning in the Great Outdoors.

source: http://blakeney-academy.blogspot.com/2008/04/just-get-outside.html