The Arrow of Light is the typically the culmination of the cub scouting program and is the only badge from cub scouting that is worn in the boy scouting program. This week we discuss the parts needed to earn the AOL (Arrow of Light).
Show Notes:
- What is the Arrow of Light? (Scouting.org)
- Arrow of Light Requirements (Boy Scout Trail)
- Top 10 Arrow of Light Ceremonies for Cub Scouts
- Honor Arrows
- Nature-Watch Arrow of Light Cub Scout Kit (Makes 6 Award Arrows) (Amazon)
Transcript:
Arrow of Light is the typically the culmination of the cub scouting program and is the only badge from cub scouting that is worn in the boy scouting program.
There are five basic parts to the Arrow of Light and these are accomplished during the year and a half as a Webelos scout. Sometimes this is referred to as Webelos 1 and Webelos 2, but I will refer to them as just Webelos Scouts. Webelos is the last of the cub scouts program years at about age 10, and typically the cub is in grades 4 and 5.
The five sections include
- Be active in your Webelos den for at least six months
- Complete each of the four required Adventures, Building a Better World, Duty to God in Action, Outdoor Adventurer and Scouting Adventure.
- Complete four additional adventures with at least one as an elective of your den or family’s choosing.
- Complete the pamphlet exercises “How to Protect Your Children From Child Abuse”
and
- Earn the cyber chip.
If you have participated in the cub program, you would be familiar with the active component in you pack. While active varies from council to council, usually it boils down to dues paying, and sometimes some amount of attendance.
You would also be familiar with the pamphlet and the cyber chip, so we will be focusing on the Adventures needed for Arrow of light.
Beginning with the four required Adventures, and touching on how they relate to transitioning to the boy scout program.
The first, Building a better world, is about citizenship. It enforces your rights and duties as a citizen and use and display of the flag.
The second adventure is Duty to God in Action, and as the name indicates stresses faith and religious tolerance.
Outdoor Adventurer introduces the outdoors, camping and how to be a good Stuart of the outdoors, with leave no trace principles, and how to protect yourself in different outdoor situations.
And finally, scouting Adventure mirrors a lot of the requirements for the Scout rank in boy scouts.
If you want to give your cubs a leg up in the scouting program, treating this section with added emphasis will be a big help.
Items like learning the scout oath and law, understanding scout badges and how a troop works will give scouts context to the next stage in scouting.
Some of the concepts in these four adventures may not be familiar if you have not been part of the Scouts BSA program. A tip to remember would be to reach out to your local troop for help.
Flag ceremonies and folding the flag are integral parts of the Boy Scouting program, and they should easily be able to lend a few scouts to work through it with your den.
Many troops have boys or girls in positions of responsibility specific to these adventures. There is an Outdoor Ethics Guide position, a chaplain’s aid postion, and sometimes even a scout instructor position for knots and lashings.
Of the other Adventures the ones that have the most relevance to boy scouting would be the cooking requirements within Castaway, swimming skills on Aquanaut, and plant and tree identification in “Into the woods”.
Once complete the scout has earned their Arrow of light, and if they are at least 10 ½ they can move into the Scouts BSA program.
As a former webelos leader, one of the challenges is getting all the scouts to complete all the participation requirements as you may not be able to do all requirements at once, and then if a scout misses the part 2 meeting, you have bits and pieces that need to be made up.
My suggestion is to focus on the required adventures first, and if you see you have a few scouts that have missed one of the sessions, craft an additional session to reinforce elements previously completed, and try and keep them all moving together.
This obviously becomes much eaiser with the other adventures, as the need only 5, one of which they can do on their own, so if you plan on completing 7 or 8 of the adventures as Webelos, if they have partials it will not interfere with the scouts earning the AOL award.
Take what you like and leave the rest, and as we say in Woodbadge, feedback is a gift, leave yours below in the comments, with the hope we can all learn together.
I’m Scoutmaster Dave, and this was a bit on the Arrow of Light.
