Achieving Eagle Scout

Join me on my journey through my Eagle Scout Project.

What is an Eagle Scout and Why I Wanted to Be One

It’s been over 100 years since Arthur Eldred earned the first Eagle Scout Award, and now new research shows how much Eagle Scouts make a difference every day. Since 1912, over 2 million young men have achieved the highest rank in Scouting. A study by Baylor University called "Merit Beyond the Badges" found that Eagle Scouts tend to:

Have better planning and goal-setting skills, and be more connected with others
Be in leadership roles at work or in the community
Have closer relationships with family and friends
Volunteer for church or charitable groups
Donate money to help others
Work with others to improve their neighborhoods

This research was funded by the Templeton Foundation and done by Baylor University in 2010. It’s pretty inspiring because it shows that earning Eagle isn’t just about badges, and campouts, it’s about growing into someone who’s ready to lead and serve others. As a Scout working towards Eagle, I want to live up to these ideals and make a real difference someday.

About My Eagle Scout Project

Main Purpose of The Project

My Eagle Scout Project was a water sustainability project. I installed gutters on a chicken coop at a local farm and provided the farm with a rain barrel to collect the water. Installing these gutters allows the farm to reuse rainwater and provide water to the chickens at a lower cost and effort.

Where was the project?

My Eagle Scout Project was a partnered project with a farm in my town. Bowers Farm is a part of my local school district and it allows students who are interested in zoology and farming to have a place to learn. The farm also has a cool website that anyone can look at-https://www.schoolfarm.org/

All About My Project

Planning

To plan my Eagle Scout Project, I used the Eagle Scout Project Workbook that is available on scouting.org. Using this workbook ensured that I had a tried and true layout for my plan that would lead to success in my project. The planning portion of my project took a lot of hard work, such as making blueprints for the gutters and searching online for the best materials to use. In my opinion, the plan is the most important part of the project. This is because a strong plan brings together all the components needed to make an Eagle Scout project the best it can be.

Challenges

While installing the gutters, my team and I faced a few problems that we had to work together to solve on site. While installing the gutters, we realized that a part of my plan was not going to work as I had expected it to. The downspout brackets that I bought did not support the weight of the downspout the way I had planned. This meant that we had to acquire new materials from the store to accommodate. Also, some of the kids at the project were not allowed to go on the ladders and this made it hard for them to help out because most of the work was on ladders. Because of this I had to find small tasks for them to do that still felt meaningful, such as having them holding the ladder steady for others.

Takeaways

My biggest takeaway from my Eagle Scout Project is that having a well developed and thorough plan is one of the most important parts of a project, but being prepared for things to go wrong and having the ability to be adaptive and solve these problems is just as important. This project improved my leadership skills a lot. This project has helped me learn valuable lessons that I will use for the rest of my life.

From Planning to Action: A Blog Post

When I first started working on my Eagle Project, I spent a lot of time looking at the outline for planning the project. I realized that I had never planned, prepared, and built a project of this size before. I had to take a step back and look at every component that was going to go into making this project a success. I got straight to work and took the first step by using the Eagle Project Workbook provided on scouting.org to plan my project. The workbook helped me brainstorm things that I would need to keep in mind while planning.

Most of the plan was figuring out small details that would be very important during the project. For example, in BSA there are safety precautions that limit the usage of tools like drills, saws, and ladders for scouts under the age of 13. This was going to be a problem because a majority of the work at my project was on ladders and using a drill. So as a result of this rule I had to find small things that younger scouts could help with that would keep them included and keep them busy.

As I worked to develop the plan, I visited the farm with my Eagle Advisor so we could take precise measurements of the structure. We worked with the measurements to imagine how this project was going to look. I took the measurements home and started crafting a blueprint to accommodate the needs that the farm required for the chicken coop. While planning, I also explored potential problems that I could have during the project.

One of my takeaways was how important the planning for projects like this is. The planning portion of my my project was by far the most important and strenuous part of the entire process. It required careful thought and organization to put this plan together the best I could. Attention to detail was critical during planning because the plan would shape the final outcome of the project and would they would reflect each other.

Although I put multiple weeks and countless hours into planning my project I knew that dedicating time into this project would pay off by creating a strong plan. Not surprisingly, it proved to be very valuable. By spending so much time on the plan and outlining each step of the process I was able to go into the project with confidence and a well developed understanding of what needed to happen.

One of the most important lessons I learned during the planning phase was that even the best plans don’t always go as expected. Being prepared for the possibility that parts of my plan might fail was just as crucial as the planning itself. I made sure to be flexible, consider solutions, and stay open to adapting when needed. This mindset helped me stay calm and focused when things didn’t go according to my plan. In the end, my ability to adapt and respond to unexpected challenges was just as important to the success of the project as the planning.