Before you begin

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers. 

Setting up this activity

• Print out copies of the bingo cards and the calling cards before running this activity. You’ll need to cut them out.
• Put all the calling cards in a bag, or fold them up and place them in a bowl.
• If you want to play this game multiple times, you could laminate the cards and use tokens to cover any symbols that are called out, rather than using a pen to tick them off. You could also use whiteboard pens on laminated cards.
• You may want to have prizes for a line, two lines or full house. 
• Remind people it’s about taking part, cheering each other on and having fun, not about winning.

Play the game

1. Tell everyone you’re going to play a game of bingo learn about map symbols. For younger groups, you could ask if anyone can describe any map symbols they already know or what we might find on a map. 
2. Hand out the cards or pens to each person, however you may want to play in pairs or small groups. 
3. A bowl or bag should have pieces of paper in, with each one having a map symbol on it that’ll match a symbol on some of the cards.
4. Someone will pick out folded pieces of paper from a bag or bowl, then call out what it is. You could hold up each piece of paper as it’s called to help people recognise the symbols.
5. When the symbols are called out, everyone should check their card. If the symbol is on their card then they can tick it off or place a token on it. 
6. In bingo, you normally play for one line, two lines and full house.

• To play for one line, if people tick off all the symbols in a row, or in a horizontal line, then they can shout ‘Bingo!’
• To play for two lines, if people tick off all the symbols in two rows, or in two horizontal lines, then they can shout ‘Bingo!’
• Finally, to play for a ‘full house’, if people tick off all the symbols on their card, they can shout ‘Bingo!’. 

Winning the game

1. As each ‘Bingo!’ is called, someone should check the cards to make sure it’s been called correctly.
2. You may want to give prizes for when ‘Bingo’ is called, but you could also reward teamwork or being a good player to others and cheering them on.
3. At the end, you could ask people to swap cards and play again. To play again, if you’re using pens to tick off the symbols, people could tick them in a different way or direction for each game. They could also use different coloured pens. If you’re using tokens, these can just be removed.

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/play-map-symbol-bingo/

Before you begin 

1. Research your local MP/councillors to find out how to get in touch with them and make a note of this to use during the session. You might find these websites useful:

• www.gov.uk/find-your-local-councillors
• www.theyworkforyou.com

Go plastic free! 

1. The group should spend some time thinking about all the ways they use single use plastic during their Scout meetings, this could be drinking straws, packaging, craft equipment and so on. Write these down on a large piece of paper once you’ve thought of them.
2. Now you’ve got your list, work out ways in which you can make a change to eliminate single use plastic from your meetings. Could you use metal straws instead of plastic, buy from sustainable providers or use tote bags?
3. Work out how you will make the changes and create a ‘plastic pledge’ for your group – this could be a written statement, an artistic pledge board or you could even act out or sing your pledge and record it for all to see.
4. Now it’s time to bring some help on board! Using the contact details you found for your local MP/councillor, write a letter to them explaining your ‘plastic pledge’. In your letter include why you’ve done it, and most importantly, ask them for their help in making your local area single use plastic free. You could also ask them to visit your group or if your group could visit them.
5. To find out more facts about plastic and the huge impact it is having on our incredible planet and wildlife, some of which you could also include in your letter, see the ‘Plastic is not fantastic’ explainer poster.
6. Whilst you’re waiting for a response you could share your plastic pledge with the local community – could you tell a local newspaper or radio station?
7. Once you receive a response, make the arrangements for the decision maker to come to you or for your group to visit them.
8. If you don’t get a response, don’t be disheartened! Decision makers are busy people. Why not try again in a few months’ time? In the meantime, you could continue sharing your plastic pledge with your community, other Scout groups and see if there are any other actions you can take to help protect our environment.
9. If your group is on social media make sure to share your #PlasticPledge.
10. Keep a written or photographic record of what you’ve done, in case you need to refer back to it at a later date.

This activity helps contribute towards some of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Find out more about the SDGs, and how Scouts across the world are getting involved.

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/plastic-is-not-fantastic/

Before you begin 

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Take a look at our guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.  
• Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers. 

Planning and setting up this activity

• Choose appropriate craft paper for the group to use. Remember, thinner paper will be easier to cut, but will be more delicate. Thicker paper or card will be harder to cut, but sturdier.
• You may wish to gather some examples of paper cutting from around the world, different cultures, and different faiths and beliefs.

Learn about paper cuttings

1. Gather everyone together and explain that you’re going to be making some paper cutting art, which is done in different countries, cultures, beliefs and faiths to celebrate and mark occasions.
2. Chinese Paper Cutting or Jianzhi (剪纸) is the first type of paper cutting design. Paper was invented by Cai Lun in the Eastern Han Dynasty in China around the 2nd century. The art form later spread to other parts of the world with different places or cultures adopting their own styles. 
3. Ask if anyone knows what other cultures might use paper-cutting to celebrate or mark event or occasions. Some examples are included on this page under ‘Learn more about paper cutting in other countries, cultures, and faiths or beliefs’
4. Ask if anyone can think of a modern style of paper cutting they or someone else may use. One example is over Christmas and over winter periods, people often use paper cutting to make snowflakes to decorate their homes. Paper snowflakes are said to have originated in the Victorian era when paper snowflakes were given as gifts.
5. Tell everyone that more recent or modern-day paper cutters usually follow one or more of the ‘traditional’ styles, while others have begun to expand the art into new styles, motifs, and designs.
6. Explain that another common modern paper cutting is silhouette. Silhouette can refer to the art of cutting outlines or portraits out of black paper. Cutting portraits, generally in profile, from black card became popular in the mid-18th century, though the term silhouette was seldom used until the early decades of the 19th century, and the tradition has continued under this name into the 21st century.
7. Contemporary paper cutting is also sometimes associated with the art of stencilling, which is often used in graffiti art. The use of hand-cut stencils in graffiti art has received international attention in recent years due in part to the artist Banksy.

Make your own paper cuttings

1. Give everyone some coloured craft paper, black paper tissue paper and pens or pencils to choose from.
2. Everyone should fold their paper in half once or twice. For complex designs, you may wish to fold the paper three or four times. However, this’ll make the paper harder to cut.
3. People should sketch out a design on the folded paper. You could find some examples for inspiration. Everyone should be creative and try to think of something they might display at a celebration or use something that means something to them.
4. If anyone has any symbols that mean a lot to them, encourage them to include these.
5. When people think they’ve finished sketching their design they should use a mirror to see what their design will look like when cut and unfolded. They should hold the mirror along the fold-line and look at the reflection.
6. People who plan to cut out shapes could shade these areas in so that they know which bits to cut.
7. Give out scissors, metal rulers, craft knives and cutting mats.
8. Everyone should cut out their designs, using scissors or craft knives.
   • Scissors can be used to cut out the design or to make cuts around the edges. Make sure everyone takes their time and cuts with care.
   • Knives should be used with a cutting mat on a secure, flat surface and always using a metal ruler. They should make cuts slowly and carefully. Always have a cutting mat beneath the paper and keep their fingers away from the blade.
9. When they’ve finished, everyone should unfold the paper. They should see that the design has been replicated on the side that was folded-over.
10. Everyone should collect up all the scrap pieces of paper that were cut out. These can be recycled in other art projects.

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/paper-cutting-creations/

Before you begin 

• Sort the essential details: where will you hold the camp, when will it be, and who will you invite? 
• Make sure you’ve reminded yourself about what you need to before a night away, including nights away permits. There’s also a checklist of things to consider.
• Think about whether your campsite’s close enough to wild habitats to run a biodiversity survey. 
• Older young people will be able to take more responsibility for planning elements of the camp, but you’ll need to make sure you’re involved with their planning so everything’s safe.

Plan your camp

1. Everyone should think about how an eco-camp could challenge other groups to take action to protect our environment. They may think about showing people how to do a plastic-free camp, running games to teach people what they’ve learned, doing a biodiversity study, and using alternative sources of energy. 
2. Everyone should split into five teams: meals and snacks, leave no trace, eco ways to wash, use, rent and repair, and eco events. 
3. Each team should use a big sheet of paper and pens or pencils to plan how they’ll run their area so it’s eco-friendly and teaches others too.

Host your eco-camp

1. The adults leading the camp should support everyone to take the lead on the day-to-day parts of running the camp, running activities, and supporting guests. 
2. Everyone should enjoy the experience and spend time talking about all they’ve learned about protecting our planet. 

This activity helps contribute towards some of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Find out more about the SDGs, and how Scouts across the world are getting involved.

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/run-an-eco-friendly-camp/

Before you begin 

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Take a look at our guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.  
• Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.

Running this activity

1. Gather everyone together and give everyone pens and paper.
2. Ask everyone to think about the Scout badges. You could look at some badges on people’s uniform or blankets, in a badge book, on a poster, or you could download some badge images from the brand centre. This could be a good opportunity to get someone from another section to talk about the badges they do or have done. They could even use this towards a requirement for another badge or challenge award.  
3. Everyone should divide their paper into four. They could do this however they like.
4. In the first box, ask people to write or draw what their favourite Scout badges are.
5. In the second box, ask people to note down which badges they’d like to do that they haven’t done yet.
6. In the third box, ask everyone to think about the badges they didn’t like doing or wouldn’t want to do, as well as the reasons why.
7. Finally, ask everyone to think about the topics the badges cover, such as cooking or gardening, and note this down in the fourth box. Are there any patterns or similarities? Do they remember doing similar badges in younger sections? Do they think anything is missing?
8. Explain that Scouts are running a competition for people to design a new activity badge. The winning badge idea will be used to create a new occasional badge that Scouts can buy and wear on their uniform. Tell everyone that they’re going to take part and invent their own badge.
9. Now, ask everyone to look closely at the designs of the badges. Ask people what they think about what the badges look like, such as their style or the colours used. Ask everyone what new activity badge they’d like to create. and what it may look like.
10. When everyone’s ready give out copies of the badge competition template and ask people to design their badge. Remind them they’ll need to include:
    • The Scouts fleur-de-lis somewhere on the badge
    • Circular shape (the badge will be 7cm diameter)
    • A maximum of eight colours
    • The name of your badge 
11. Anyone that finishes early could add what you would need to do to achieve their new badge onto their sheet.
12. Collect all the badge designs together.

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/design-your-dream-scout-badge/

Make your pledge

1. The person leading the activity should explain that the choices people make have an impact on the environment. 
2. Everyone should think about the sorts of choices they make every day that affect the environment, for example, the things they eat, the way they travel, and the things they buy. 

WWF has a handy Food for thought poster with more information. 

3. Everyone should think about the impact of their choices. They could use the BBC’s climate change food calculator or the World Land Trust carbon calculator to work out the impact of yesterday’s dinner or their journey to the meeting. If they can’t access these, they could use the Carbon conscious’ information sheet instead. 

It’s important to create a space that doesn’t shame or judge people. This is all about learning.

4. Everyone should work out the impact of eating a ‘high impact food’ every day (compared to a few times a week) or using a different mode of transport for a short journey they make a lot. 
5. Everyone should think about how they’ll use this knowledge to lower their carbon footprint. They should make a pledge to reduce their impact.

Pledges don’t have to be all-or-nothing. Something like ‘try to eat more plant-based foods and less meat and dairy by trying veggie sausages and some different plant milks on my cereal’ or ‘take the bus to town at the weekend rather than driving’ is great; people don’t have to abandon their cars and go totally vegan overnight. Be aware of other reasons people may find it difficult to make changes, for example, disability or finances.

6. Everyone should share their pledge – it’s up to them how they do it: they could write it down, record a video, or even turn it into a song. If you can, why not share some on social media.

Spread the word

1. Everyone should decide what message they want to share – do they want to focus on the impact of food, or transport (or both)? 
2. Everyone should arrange a date, time and venue where people can gather together and learn about how their choices impact the planet. 

Use the ‘Event planning checklist’ to make sure you’ve thought of everything.

3. Everyone should prepare for their event. Do they want to make copies of the ‘Carbon conscious’ information sheet available, or set up access to the online calculators in step three above?
4. When people arrive, share your new knowledge with them and help them understand the impact their actions make. What difference would small changes (for example, only eating a ‘high impact food’ a few times a week)? 
5. Everyone should share the pledges they’ve made – how did they find a balance between making a positive difference and keeping it realistic? 
6. Everyone should give their guests a chance to make a pledge of their own. They should give everyone a chance to share it, for example, on a display or social media. 
7. Once guests have left, everyone should tidy away, making sure to recycle all of their rubbish.

Make your pledge

When talking about how our behavior effects the world around us you could talk about how the young people travel to school discuss how food travels to supermarkets and shops or where they go on holiday and how they get there.

Discuss the actions the young people could take to reduce their carbon emissions.

Spread the word

Think about the actions our younger sections could take. Maybe they could create posters, make a video or hold their own meeting and invite their grown ups.

This activity helps contribute towards some of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Find out more about the SDGs, and how Scouts across the world are getting involved.

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/carbon-conscious/

Before you begin 

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There’s also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
• Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers. 

Planning and setting up this activity 

• You may want to have some examples for people to use.
• You may choose to use craft matchboxes in this activity, as they come without any strikers, which is the part normally used to light matches. 

Making the craft 

1. Gather everyone together and ask them to think of their favourite trip, a journey they want to go on or a walk they like to do. Some people may wish to share theirs with the group.
2. Tell everyone their going to make a matchbox map to help them to share this trip, walk or journey. 
3. You could ask people to plot out a walk you’re going on using features from an OS Map and they could then use their maps to try to spot the features while on the route.
4. Hand out pens and paper, then ask everyone to draw out their journey on paper, so they know what their map will look like.
5. When they’re ready, everyone needs to take a matchbox and pull out the drawer.
6. Use a ruler to measure the length of the drawer, so the longest side.
7. Next, use this measurement to create a strip of paper to fit inside the drawer. You can do this by taking an A4 piece of paper and measuring out the length of the drawer from one edge. Mark a dot, then do this again on the other side of the paper. Use a ruler to connect the two dots together, then cut out the paper strip with scissors. 
8. Take the paper strip and fold it to make it into a concertina or paper accordion, which each fold being the same width as the matchbox. It should look like a zig-zag. 
9. On one side of the paper strip, draw out your map. Remember to include a start and an end. You can do this however you like. You could draw out the landmarks, then connect them together with a dotted line or footprints. 
10. Try to add any instructions, such as ‘Turn left at the postbox’.
11. You may also wish to decorate the back of the paper or add some detailed instructions, such as the location’s postcode.
12. When you’re ready, glue one end of the strip into the matchbox. 
13. Finally, decorate the outside of the matchbox, again you can do this however you like. You could say where your matchbox is a map of.
14. Your matchbox map is ready to use – share it with a friend and show them your journey! 

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/make-a-matchbox-map/

Before you begin 

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers.

This activity gets young people saving up recycled items to build a robot together. They earn tokens by playing games and then exchange those tokens for materials to build their robot – they will have to decide what to spend their tokens on – and then vote for the best robot! 

Planning this activity

• Ask everyone to bring in some clean items of recycling. Household items, such as milk bottles, tin foil, toilet roll tubes and cereal boxes all work really well. If you’ve got space, you could build a collection over a few weeks. 
• Assign token values to different materials and put them somewhere everyone can see them. Materials you’ve got plenty of should be worth fewer tokens and if you only have a small amount of a material, make it worth more tokens. It’s up to you how you display the values – you could make little signs or write on the materials.
• You might want to run the Pack your Bags activity with your group first to get a taste of budgeting and identifying needs and wants. 
• This activity could be run over multiple sessions, depending on how long you want to collect recycled items for. 

Step 1: What makes the best robot?

1. The person leading the activity should put all of the materials on display and tell everyone that no one ‘owns’ these items, even if they brought them in. They should explain that each item is worth a certain number of tokens and that all of the items are up for grabs. 
2. Everyone should work together to decide what makes the best robot. Maybe it’s the tallest, the shiniest or the one with the most functions? Everyone should choose something achievable that they could try to make with the materials available. If people find it tricky to decide, they could vote on the most popular ideas.
3. Everyone should split into small teams. Each team should move into their own space.

Step 2: Points make parts 

2. Everyone should play a quick game as or in teams, such as Game of Aim, Noughts and crosses relay or Human knot.
3. The person leading the activity should give everyone one token for taking part. They should give the winning team three extra tokens, the team that came second two extra tokens, and the team that came third one extra token.
4. Each group should decide whether they want to spend any of their tokens. Explain that it’s up to them. If they wait too long then the cheaper materials may disappear, but if they don’t save the tokens up then they may never be able to afford the more expensive materials.
5. At the end of each game, someone in each team should write down how many tokens their team has combined and how many they have spent on materials so far. Make sure everyone understands that they’re spending their tokens as a team so they need to come to a joint decision.
6. Everyone should play another quick game and the person leading the activity should award tokens, remind people how many tokens they have and give people the chance to spend them.
7. Everyone should repeat step four until they’ve played enough games. After the final game, everyone should spend the rest of their tokens.

Step 3: Construct your robot 

1. Each team should sit around their piece of card. The person leading the activity should lay their materials out. 
2. Teams should work together to build their robot by sticking their materials to the piece of card. They should remember the group’s decision about what makes the best robot as they build.
3. Once everyone’s finished, they should take it in turns to show off their robot to the rest of the group. Does a robot stand out as the best? 
4. Decide whether there’ll be or how you’ll choose a winner. Volunteers, young people, parents and carers, or young leaders could anonymously vote on their favourite. You could also give out prizes for best teamwork, best communication, most helpful and best invention.

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/create-a-recycled-robot/

Before you begin

• This is a great activity to run during an online session. Check out the advice on using Zoom and other popular digital platforms and the guidance on being safe online.
• Decide whether you’ll use breakout rooms so people can work in groups. Zoom have help and guidance about breakout rooms on their website.

Space mission: Research rover

1. The person leading the activity should welcome everyone to the meeting and mute them. 
2. Everyone should chat about rovers and how they might be useful on space missions. The person leading the activity may need to explain what they are first – we’ve included some information above. Everyone should think about what they’re used for and how they might be useful to people who want to learn more about other planets. 

It’s up to you how you run this discussion – it may work well for people to put their hand up if they have something to say and wait for the person leading the game to say their name before they unmute themselves and share their thoughts.

3. Everyone should split into small groups. Each group should choose a current space mission and find out: it’s name, where it’s to, what it’s researching, whether it’ll use a rover, and what other equipment it’s using.

This is the perfect time to try out breakout rooms if you’re using them. 

4. Each group should imagine that they’re the space research team working on this mission. They could give their team a name, if they can think of a clever-sounding one.
5. Each space research team should review the information they’ve found out about the mission and prepare themselves for a short interview or press conference to share what the mission will be all about.
6. When everyone’s ready (and back in the main meeting), the person leading the activity should choose a group to act as interviewers or journalists and a group to answer the questions.
7. The journalists should ask questions about the details of the mission and the space research team should use what they found in their research to share what they know about the mission in as much detail as they can. Other groups should listen and prepare their own questions and answers.
8. Everyone should swap the roles around so every group has a turn at being journalists and being interviewed.
9. Everyone should get back together with their space research teams and design their own space mission. They should decide which planet they want to research, the features or phenomena they’re researching, and what sort of data they’d need to collect.
10. When groups have agreed on a mission, one person in each group should type out the design of their mission. 

People could also get creative on paper – they could set it out like secret mission dossiers or use pictures to show processes and demonstrate different phases of the mission. They’ll need to take a quick photo to share in the next step.

11. When everyone’s finished their mission design, each space research team should swap their design with another group. Each team should now have a new mission dossier in front of them.
12. Each team should pretend that they’ve been assigned a new mission by the UK Space Agency. They need to design a rover to help undertake the mission they’ve just received. Each rover will need to be suited to the environments, terrain, travel and data collection or monitoring involved in the mission.
13. Each team should spend at least 15 minutes designing their rovers. They should think about how they’ll arrive and land on the planet, the planet’s terrain and temperature, the risk of radiation damage, and what materials could stop it from breaking. 
14. When everyone’s ready, the groups come together again to share sketches and ideas for how the rover will perform the tasks set out in the mission brief.

Example questions for journalists

• What’s the name of your mission?
• Where’s the mission to?
• How long will it take?
• What do you hope to find out during the mission?
• What equipment will you use?
• Will a rover be used on the mission?

Labelled image of a conventional rover

Artist impression of the Mars Rover, showing the instruments that help it to perform its functions. (Source: Airbus UK)

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/operation-research-rover/

Before you begin 

• Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Additional help to carry out your risk assessment, including examples can be found here. Don’t forget to make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely. 
• Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help if you’re short on helpers. 
• Check out our guidance for safe pioneering projects. 
• Make sure everyone is wearing sturdy shoes.
• Make sure that the ground you’re building on is steady, level and presents no other hazards. 

Start the activity 

1. Gather everyone in a circle. 
2. Explain to the group that they’re going to construct a bridge that can be crossed without using any rope. It was invented by da Vinci over 500 years ago. 
3. Explain that, to learn how to build it, they’re going to start with a small-scale version using chopsticks. 
4. Spilt everyone into smaller groups and give each group 12 chopsticks. Now, ask them to listen carefully and follow these instructions. You may want to write them out or print them out and give a sheet to each group.
   1. Lay one lollipop stick on the table  
   2. Place two lollipop stick at right angles at either end of the first chopstick. These two lollipop sticks should be laying on top of the first one. 
   3. Lay another lollipop stick horizontally and on the top of the middle of the two vertical sticks. 
   4. Lift the first horizontal stick we put down just off the table and slide in two new sticks under the first horizontal and with the ends resting on the top of the second horizontal. 
   5. Add a new horizontal stick under the end of the newest parallel sticks. 
   6. Once again lift the end horizontal stick just off the table and slide in two new sticks under the first horizontal and with the ends resting on the top of the second horizontal. 
   7. Repeat steps d and e until you run out of lollipop sticks. 
5. When everyone’s happy and can make a small da Vinci bridge, challenge the group to repeat the activity with full-size pioneering poles. You may need to find a larger space or go outside to do this.  
6. If you aren’t able to try to make a version using pioneering poles, you could challenge groups to build the bridge in the fastest time, make the longest bridge within a time limit, or try Leonardo da Vinci’s mirrored writing. 

Reproduced from the original post found on Scouts UK: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/da-vinci-s-unbelievable-bridge/