A Few Changes To The Swimming Merit Badge
The Swimming merit badge is one of the most popular badges to earn during the summer. Starting this summer, the badge is even better.
There are new requirements, updated requirements, and obsolete requirements that have been deleted.
The changes include more focus on correct stroke mechanics and the removal of requirements involving snorkeling, competitive swimming and CPR have been removed.
In 2014, you can use either the old requirements or the new ones to earn your Swimming merit badge. Starting in 2015, you’ll have to use the new ones.
For a complete list of the new requirements, check out this Scouting magazine blog entry.
As a Program Director of a summer camp from 2012-2017 this change was a great change. CPR is already a requirement for actual rank advancement. This merit badge now focuses on people being able to ACTUALLY swim correctly.
Well I ‘m glad i already got my swimming merit badge. I thought learning a bit of CPR was really cool.
I completely disagree with CPR being taken out!
I’m a swimming merit badge counselor and I have always thought that CPR was misplaced in the swimming merit badge. It’s a good skill to have, but it should be taught in a CPR class not a swimming merit badge class.
Me too they should still have that on there!