When working on the achievements to earn his Bear badge, you may have seen some requirements you wanted to try but didn't. Now you can review the Achievements section of your Bear Book with your boy and use any requirement he did not count toward his Bear badge. These achievement requirements now follow the same rules as the elective requirements. Each one is a separate project. You can mix requirements from electives and unused achievements in any manner to get the ten you need for each arrow point.
A Bear Cub Scout may earn arrow points from the Big Bear Cub Scout Book until he becomes a Webelos Scout.
Remember this important rule: If a boy completed an achievement requirement to earn his Bear badge, he cannot use it again to earn arrow points. But there are lots more.
The Gold Arrow Point is worn 3/4" below and centered under the Wolf rank badge. Silver Arrow Points are worn in rows of two below, centered, and touching the Gold Arrow Point or previously earned Silver Arrow Points for the Wolf rank.
As you and your boy peruse the following list of electives for your Bear Cubs, remember that you can go back to the uncompleted requirements in the Bear Achievements section of the "Bear Handbook" and work on those towards Arrow Points.
Learn how to read an outdoor thermometer. Put one outdoors and read it at the same time every day for two weeks. Keep a record of each day's temperature and a description of the weather each day (fair skies, rain, fog, snow, etc.).
Build a weather vane. Record wind direction every day at the same hour for two weeks. Keep a record of the weather for each day.
Make a rain gauge.
Find out what a barometer is and how it works. Tell your den about it. Tell what "relative humidity" means.
Learn to identify three different kinds of clouds. Estimate their heights.
Watch the weather forecast on TV every day for two weeks. Describe three different symbols used on weather maps. Keep a record of how many times the weather forecast is correct.
Build a crystal or diode radio. Check with your local craft or hobby shop or the nearest Scout shop that carries a crystal radio kit. It is all right to use a kit.
Make and operate a battery powered radio, following the directions with the kit.
Help an adult rig and sail a real boat. (Wear your PFD.)
Help an adult repair a real boat or canoe.
Know the flag signals for storm warnings.
Help an adult repair a boat dock.
With an adult on board, and both wearing PFDs, row a boat around a 100-yard course that has two turns. Demonstrate forward strokes, turns to both sides, and backstrokes.
Identify five different kinds of aircraft, in flight if possible, or from models or photos.
Ride in a commercial airplane.
Explain how a hot air balloon works.
Build and fly a model airplane. (You may use a kit. Every time you do this differently, it counts as a completed project.)
Sketch and label an airplane showing the direction of forces acting on it (lift, drag, and load).
Make a list of some of the things a helicopter can do that other kinds of airplanes can't. Draw or cut out a picture of a helicopter and label the parts.
Build and display a scale airplane model. You may use a kit or build it from plans.
Do an original art project and show it at a pack meeting. Every project you do counts as one requirement
Here are some ideas for art projects:
Mobile or wire sculpture, Silhouette, Acrylic painting, Watercolor painting, Collage, Mosaic, Clay sculpture, Silk screen picture.
Visit an art museum or picture gallery with your den or family.
Find a favorite outdoor location and draw or paint it.
Practice holding a camera still in one position. Learn to push the shutter button without moving the camera. Do this without film in the camera until you have learned how. Look through the viewfinder and see what your picture will look like. Make sure that everything you want in your picture is in the frame of your viewfinder.
Take five pictures of the same subject in different kinds of light.
Subject in direct sun with direct light.
Subject in direct sun with side light.
Subject in direct sun with back light.
Subject in shade on a sunny day.
Subject on a cloudy day.
Put your pictures to use.
Mount a picture on cardboard for display.
Mount on cardboard and give it to a friend.
Make three pictures that show how something happened (tell a story) and write a one sentence explanation for each.
Take a picture in your house.
With available light.
Using a flash attachment or photoflood (bright light).
With an adult, help take care of your lawn or flower beds or help take care of the lawn or flower beds of a public building, school, or church. Seed bare spots. Get rid of weeds. Pick up litter. Agree ahead of time on what you will do.
Make a sketch of a landscape plan for the area right around your home. Talk it over with a parent or den leader. Show which trees, shrubs and flowers you could plant to make the area look better.
Take part in a project with your family, den, or pack to make your neighborhood or community more beautiful. These might be having a cleanup party, painting, cleaning and painting trash barrels, and removing weeds. (Each time you do this differently, it counts as a completed project.)
Build a greenhouse and grow twenty plants from seed. You can use a package of garden seeds, or use beans, pumpkin seeds, or watermelon seeds.
Dig a hole or find an excavation project and describe the different layers of soil you see and feel. (Do not enter an excavation area alone or without permission.)
Explore three kinds of earth by conducting a soil experiment.
Visit a burned-out forest or prairie area, or a slide area, with your den or your family. Talk to a soil and water conservation officer or forest ranger about how the area will be planted and cared for so that it will grow to be the way it was before the fire or slide
What is erosion? Find out the kinds of grasses, trees, or ground cover you should plant in your area to help limit erosion.
As a den, visit a lake, stream, river, or ocean (whichever is nearest where you live). Plan and do a den project to help clean up this important source of water. Name four kinds of water pollution.
There is something about this elective that is different from any other. That is this rule: whenever you are working on the Swimming elective, you must have an adult with you who can swim.
Jump feetfirst into water over your head, swim 25 feet on the surface, stop, turn sharply, and swim back.
Swim on your back, the elementary backstroke, for 30 feet.
Rest by floating on your back, using as little motion as possible for at least one minute.
Tell what is meant by the buddy system. Know the basic rules of safe swimming
Do a racing dive from edge of pool and swim 60 feet, using a racing stroke. (You might need to make a turn.)
In archery, know the safety rules and how to shoot correctly. Put six arrows into a 4-foot target at a distance of 15 feet. Make an arrow holder. (This can be done only at a district/council day or resident or family camp.)
In skiing, know the Skier's Safety and Courtesy Code. Demonstrate walking and kick turn, climbing with a side step or herringbone, a snowplow stop, a stem turn, four linked snowplow or stem turns, straight running in a downhill position or cross-country position, and how to recover from a fall.
In ice skating, know the safety rules. From a standing start, skate forward 150 feet; and come to a complete stop within 20 feet. Skate around a corner clockwise and counterclockwise without coasting. Show a turn from forward to backward. Skate backward 50 feet.
In track, show how to make a sprint start. Run the 50-yard dash in 10 seconds or less. Show how to do the standing long jump, the running long jump, or high jump. (Be sure to have a soft landing area.)
In roller skating (with conventional or in-line skates), know the safety rules. From a standing start, skate forward 150 feet; and come to a complete stop within 20 feet. Skate around a corner clockwise and counterclockwise without coasting and show a turn from forward to backward. Skate backward 50 feet. Wear the proper protective clothing.
Earn a new Cub Scout Sports pin. (Repeat three times with different sports to earn up to three Arrow Points.)
Take part in a council- or pack-sponsored, money-earning sales program. Keep track of the sales you make yourself. When the program is over, add up the sales you have made.
Help with a garage sale or rummage sale. This can be with your family or a neighbor, or it can be a church, school, or pack event.
Start a stamp collection. You can get information about stamp collecting at any U.S. post office.
Mount and display a collection of emblems, coins, or other items to show at a pack meeting. This can be any kind of collection. Every time you show a different kind of collection, it counts as one requirement.
Start your own library. Keep your own books and pamphlets in order by subject. List the title, author, and subject of each on an index card and keep the cards in a file box, or use a computer program to store the information.
American Indian people live in every part of what is now the continental United States. Find the name of the American Indian nation that lives or has lived where you live now. Learn about these people.
Learn, make equipment for, and play two American Indian or other native American games with members of your den. Be able to tell the rules, who won, and what the score was.
Learn what the American Indian people in your area (or another area) used for shelter before contact with the Europeans. Learn what American Indian people in that area used for shelter today. Make a model of one of these shelters, historic or modern. Compare the kind of shelter you made with the others made in your den.
Learn about the ten essential items you need for a hike or campout. Assemble your own kit of essential items. Explain why each item is "essential."
Go on a short hike with your den, following the buddy system. Explain how the buddy system works and why it is important to you to follow it. Tell what to do if you are lost.
Participate with your den in front of the pack at a campfire.
Participate with your pack on an overnight campout. Help put up your tent and hlp set up the campsite.
Participate with your den in a religious service during an overnight campout or other Cub Scouting event.
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