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World Membership Badge art attack

Get creative, make your own Scout World Membership Badge, and learn about its parts.
Plan a session with this activity

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You will need

  • Natural materials (for example, leaves, twigs, feathers)
The Scout emblem
PDF – 183.9KB
Download The Scout emblem
The story behind the Scout emblem

Head over to our Heritage website to learn more about this famous icon.

Before you begin

  • Make sure you've risk assessed your meeting, and also have a COVID-safe risk assessment that’s been agreed by your line manager. You can check out more detailed guidance here. 
  • Gather enough examples of the Scout emblem for everyone to have one each. You could print these off or everyone could use the badge on their uniform.

Safety checklist

Use the Safety checklist to help you plan and risk asses your activity. Additional coronavirus-related controls to think about may include:

  • Set up a handwashing station that you can use throughout the session.
  • Remind everyone to stay at a safe distance when they’re moving around the space.
  • Think about how you’ll hand out things – it won’t work for everyone to help themselves from one big pile.
  • Make sure there is enough outdoor space to keep everyone apart, if not you could split the group in half and gather materials at separate times.

Make your badges

  1. Split into small, distanced, groups, and give each group a copy of 'The Scout emblem'. Explain that this is the World Membership Badge, worn by Scouts all over the world.
  1. Groups should head outside, and spend five minutes gathering natural materials like leaves, twigs, and stones. Make sure everyone stays at a safe distance.
  1. Everyone should use the materials they’ve gathered to recreate the World Membership Badge. They should include as many parts of the badge as they can. 
  2. Once all the groups have created their World Membership Badges, use the image to talk about each part. Ask the groups what they used to create each part, and if they know what it means, then explain its meaning.
  3. Groups should talk about why it’s good to be part of a world family of Scouts. Once every team has one or two ideas, everyone should join together and share their thoughts from a safe distance.

Reflection

Creating the World Membership Badge, and understanding what each part means, needed people to respect and trust others in your team. How did people decide which materials to choose? What did they do when different people had different ideas? Did they trust other people to make different parts of the badge? Did this activity also help people respect and trust Scouts across the world, who share the same Membership Award? What sorts of things do all Scouts have in common? How would people feel if you saw someone in another country wearing the badge?

This activity also reminded everyone that they’re local, national, and international citizens. People all across the world wear the same badge – how does that make people feel? What can the World Membership Badge teach people about citizenship (for example, service to others reminds people of their responsibilities as citizens, and the encircling rope shows that everyone’s connected)?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. Do a risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Always get approval for the activity and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

Make it accessible

All Scout activities should be inclusive and accessible.