>>606416>Demonstrate your knowledge of pocketknife safetyThat seems like an odd requirement just to get the Scout Award. It's undoubtedly something you should learn in scouts, but it seems better suited to being a tenderfoot requirement. You can't really have the older boys teach you to use a knife if you aren't part of the troop. I had to earn a totin' chit to do anything with anything sharp once I was in the troop. I think that was a better way to do it.
I like the greater emphasis on the outdoor code and outdoor awareness broadly, and on practical uses for knots rather than just knowing them; actually applying that stuff makes the learning go far deeper. While teaching somebody else to tie a square knot sounds great on the surface, it would have prevented a lot of the younger boys in my troop from ever getting tenderfoot because we simply had no new boys in that dying troop. Thinking on the final months of Troop 351 gives me some bittersweet feels; it's a shame such a good thing had to end like that. But I digress.
Sheet bend is based, I'm glad to see that one required for all scouts instead of just the pioneering merit badge now. The canoe requirement for first class, while well-intentioned, again seems kinda odd. Growing up in Utah, I didn't run across canoes all that frequently. While I've since learned to love canoeing, I think a lot of boys might feel disconnected from this requirement.
I still have no idea why citizenship requires three separate merit badges. On the whole the new requirements look pretty good, though. Unfortunately they don't do us any good without boys joining the program, but that's a different issue. Pic vaguely related, passed off a whole lot of those requirements nearby. Mainly the orienteering and pioneering ones.
