Click here for the official guidelines from the Boy Scouts of America for the Sustainability Merit Badge.
This badge relates entirely to many of the concerns upon which our Learn & Grow Educational Series is based. Growing your own non-GMO fruits and vegetables in an organic self-watering container garden is a great way to promote sustainability.
This badge calls for you to implement a plan to reduce your family’s water usage. If your family already has an in-ground garden that requires a lot of irrigation, switching to self-watering bucket containers that use very little water by comparison may be a good idea.
This badge also calls for you to reduce your family’s household waste. Your green waste (fruit and vegetable scraps, lawn clippings, etc.) and brown waste (dried leaves from your yard, hay, shredded paper, coconut coir, etc.) can be composted to create rich fertilizer for your self-watering container garden. This will reduce your family’s amount of food waste; it is not wasted if it is being used for compost. Perhaps this is why you can build a compost pile to satisfy one of the options for this badge.
This badge specifically requires you to discuss with your Badge Counselor the ways individuals, families, and communities can create their own food sources through the use of things such as potted plants, family gardens, rooftop gardens, and neighborhood or community gardens. These types of gardening are what our non-GMO, organic, self-watering container gardens are all about!
You can also discuss the effects of climate change with your Badge Counselor as part of the requirements for this badge. In doing so, if you have a self-watering container garden, discuss with your Badge Counselor how you have had to account for any recent changes in weather patterns presumed to be associated with climate change to make sure your garden remains optimally productive. How will you have to adjust your gardening techniques as the climate changes further?
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