You can learn about sports, crafts, science, trades, business, and future careers as you earn merit badges. There are more than 135 merit badges. Any Boy Scout may earn any merit badge at any time. You don't need to have had rank advancement to be eligible.
Pick a subject. Talk to your Scoutmaster about your interests. Read the requirements of the merit badges you think might interest you. Pick one to earn. Your Scoutmaster will give you the name of a person from a list of counselors. These counselors have special knowledge in their merit badge subjects and are interested in helping you.
Scout Buddy System. You must have another person with you at each meeting with the merit badge counselor. This person can be another Scout, your parents or guardian, a brother or sister or other relative, or a friend.
Get a signed merit badge application from your Scoutmaster. Get in touch with or call the merit badge counselor and tell him or her that you want to work on the merit badge. The counselor may ask to meet you to explain what is expected of you and to start helping you meet the requirements.You should also discuss work that you have already started or possibly completed.
Unless otherwise specified, work for a requirement can be started at any time. Ask your counselor to help you learn the things you need to know or do. You should read the merit badge book on the subject. Troop 49 has a library with merit badge books, see the troop librarian to sign one out, just remember to return it when you are finished.
Show Your Stuff. When you are ready, call the counselor again to make an appointment to meet the requirements. When you go take along what ever you needed to do to meet the requirements. The counselor will ask you to do each requirement to make sure that you know your stuff and have done or can do what is required.
Get the Badge. When the counselor is satisfied that you have met each requirement, he or she will sign your blue card application. Give the completed and signed blue card application to your Scoutmaster so that your merit badge can be recorded in your advancement and you then may receive your merit badge patch!
Requirements. You are expected to meet the requirements as they are stated—no more and no less. You are expected to do exactly what is stated in the requirements. If it says "show or demonstrate," that is what you must do. Just telling about it is not enough. The same thing holds true for such words as "visit", "describe", "make", "list", "collect", "identify," and "label."
The requirements listed here are the official requirements of the Boy Scouts of America. However, the requirements presented here might not match those in the Boy Scout Handbook and the merit badge pamphlets, because these requirements are updated only when the Boy Scout Requirements book is updated.The only significant difference is that as new merit badges are introduced, the requirements are posted here. http://www.scouting.org/sitecore/content/Home/BoyScouts/AdvancementandAwards/MeritBadges.aspx
If a Scout has already started working on a merit badge when a new edition of the pamphlet is introduced, he can continue to use the same merit badge requirements or switch to the new requirements to earn the badge. He need not start all over again with the new requirements.
Using worksheets that are found on the internet are NOT required but may satisfy the written requirements in some merit badges.
Resources: www.meritbadges.org for worksheets, workbooks, maps, logs, graph paper, etc.
Merit Badges Available: http://scouting.org/sitecore/content/Home/BoyScouts/AdvancementandAwards/MeritBadges.aspx
source www.scouting.org website