Meet age requirements. Be a boy who has completed the fifth grade or is 11 years old, or has earned the Arrow of Light Award but is under 18 years old.

• Complete a Boy Scout application and health history signed by your parent or guardian.
• Find a Scout troop near your home.
• Repeat the Pledge of Allegiance.
• Demonstrate the Scout sign, salute, and handshake.
• Demonstrate tying the square knot (a joining knot).
• Understand and agree to live by the Scout Oath or promise, Law, motto, and slogan, and the Outdoor Code.
• Describe the Scout badge.
• Complete the pamphlet exercises. With your parent or guardian, complete the exercises in the pamphlet How to Protect Your Children from Child Abuse: A Parent's Guide
• Participate in a Scoutmaster conference. Turn in you r Boy Scout application and health history form signed by your parent or guardian, then participate in a Scoutmaster conference.

• Present yourself to your leader, properly dressed, before going on an overnight camping trip. Show the camping gear you will use. Show the right way to pack and carry it.
• Spend at least 1 night on a patrol or troop campout. Sleep in a tent you have helped pitch.
• On the campout, assist in perparing and cooking one of your patrol's meals. Tell why it is important for each patrol member to share in meal preparation and cleanup, and explain the importance of eating together.

1. Demonstrate how to whip and fuse the ends of a rope.
2. Demonstrate you know how to tie the following knots and what their uses are: two half hitches and the tautline hitch.

• Explain the rules of safe hiking, both on a highway and cross-country, during the day and at night. Explain what to do if you are lost.
• Demonstrate how to display, raise, lower, and fold the American flag.
• Repeat from memory and explain in your own words the Scout Oath, Law, and slogan.
• Know your patrol name, give the patrol yell, and describe your patrol flag.
• Explain why we use the buddy system in Scouting.

1. Record your best in the following tests: Pushups, Pull-ups, Sit-ups, Standing long jump, 1/4 mile run/walk.
2. Show improvement in the activities listed in requirement 10a after practicing for 30 days.

• Identify local poisonous plants; tell how to treat for exposure to them.

1. Demonstrate the Heimlich maneuver and tell when it is used.
2. Show first aid for the following:

• Simple cuts and scratches,
• Blisters on the hand and foot,
• Minor burns or scalds (first degree),
• Bites and stings of insects and ticks,
• Poisonous snakebite,
• Nosebleed,
• Frostbite and Sunburn
• Participate in a Scoutmaster conference.
• Complete your board of review.
   

• Demonstrate how a compass works and how to orient a map. Explain what map symbols mean.
• Using a compass and a map together, take a 5-mile hike (or 10 miles by bike) approved by your adult leader and your parent or guardian.*
  (* If you are using a wheelchair or crutches, or if it is difficult for you to get around, you may substitute "trip" for "hike" in this requirement.)
• Since joining, have participated in five separate troop/patrol activities (other than troop/patrol meetings), two of which included camping overnight.
• On one of these campouts, select your patrol site and sleep in a tent that you pitched.
• On one campout, demonstrate proper care, sharpening, and use of knife, saw, and ax, and describe when they should be used.
• Use the tools listed in requirement 2c to prepare tinder, kindling, and fuel for a cooking fire.
• Discuss when it is appropriate to use a cooking fire and a lightweight stove. Discuss the safety precedures for using both.
• Demonstrate how to light a fire and a lightweight stove.
• On one campout, plan and cook over an open fire one hot breakfast or lunch for yourself, selecting foods from the four basic food groups. Explain the importance of good nutrition. Tell how to transport, store, and prepare the foods you selected.
• Participate in a flag ceremony for your school, religious institution, chartered organization, community, or troop activity.
• Participate in an approved (minimum of 1 hour) service project.
• Identify or show evidence of at least 10 kinds of wild animals (birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, mollusks) found in your community.
• Show what to do for "hurry" cases of stopped breathing, serious bleeding, and internal poisoning.
• Prepare a personal first aid kit to take with you on a hike.
• Demonstrate first aid for the following:
• Object in the eye
• Bite of a suspected rabid animal
• Puncture wounds from a splinter, nail, and fish hook
• Serious burns (second degree)
• Heat exhaustion
• Shock
• Heatstroke, dehydration, hypothermia, and hyperventilation.
• Tell what precautions must be taken for a safe swim.
• Demonstrate your ability to jump feetfirst into water over your head in depth, level off and swim 25 feet on the surface, stop, turn sharply, resume swimming, then return to your starting place. **
  (** This requirement may be waived by the troop committee for medical or safety reasons.)
• Demonstrate water rescue methods by reaching with your arm or leg, by reaching with a suitable object, and by throwing lines and objects. Explain why swimming rescues should not be attempted when a reaching or throwing rescue is possible, and explain why and how a rescue swimmer should avoid contact with the victim.
• Participate in a school, community, or troop program on the dangers of using drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, and other practices that could be harmful to your health. Discuss your participation in the program with your family.
• Demonstrate scout spirit by living the Scout Oath (Promise) and Scout Law in your everyday life.
• Participate in a Scoutmaster conference.
• Complete your board of review.
   

• Demonstrate how to find directions during the day and at night without using a compass.
• Using a compass, complete an orienteering course that covers at least 1 mile and requires measuring the height and/or width of designated items (tree, tower, canyon, ditch, etc.)
• Since joining, have participated in ten separate troop/patrol activities (other than troop/patrol meetings), three of which included camping overnight.
• Help plan a patrol menu for one campout - including one breakfast, lunch, and dinner - that requires cooking. Tell how the menu includes the four basic food groups and meets nutritional needs.
• Using the menu planned in reqirement 4a, make a list showing the cost and food amounts needed to feed three or more boys and secure the ingredients.
• Tell which pans, utensils, and other gear will be needed to cook and serve these meals.
• Explain the procedures to follow in the safe handling and storage of fresh meats, dairy products, eggs, vegetables, and other perishable food products. Tell how to properly dispase of camp garbge, can, plastic containers, and other rubbish.
• On one campout, serve as your patrol's cook. Supervise your assistant(s) in using a stove or building a cooking fire. Prepare the breakfast, lunch, and dinner planned in requirement 4a. Lead your patrol in saying grace at the meals and supervise cleanup.
• Visit and discuss with a selected individual approved by your leader (elected official, judge, attorney, civil servant, principal, teacher) your constitutional rights and obligations as a U.S. citizen.
• Identify or show evidence of at least 10 kinds of native plants found in your community.
• Discuss when you should and should not use lashings.
• Demonstrate tying the timber hitch and clove hitch and their use in square, shear, and diagonal lashings by joining two or more poles or staves together.
• Use lashing to make a useful camp gadget.
• Demonstrate tying the bowline knot and describe several ways it can be used.
• Demonstrate bandages for a sprained ankle, and for injuries on the head, the upper arm, and the collarbone.
• Show how to transport by yourself, and with one other person, a person:
• from a smoke-filled room
• with a sprained ankle, for at least 25 yards.
• Tell the five most common signs of a heart attack. Explain the steps (procedures) in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
• Tell what precautions must be taken for a safe trip afloat.
• Successfully complete the BSA swimmer test. *
  (* This requirement may be waived by the troop committee for medical or safety reasons.)
• Demonstrate survival skills by leaping into deep water wearing clothes (shoes, socks, swim trunks, long pants, belt, and long-sleeved shirt). Remove shoes and socks, inflate the shirt, and show that you can float using the shirt for support. Remove and inflate the pants for support. Swim 50 feet using the inflated pants for support, then show how to reinflate the pants while using them for support. *
  (* This requirement may be waived by the troop committee for medical or safety reasons.)
• Withe a helper and a practice victim, show a line rescue both as tender and rescueer. (The practice victim should be approximately 30 feet from shore in deep water.)
• Demonstrate scout spirit by living the Scout Oath (Promise) and Scout Law in your everyday life.
• Participate in a Scoutmaster conference.
• Complete your board of review.

NOTE: Alternate requirements for the First Class rank are available for Scouts with physical or mental disabilities if they meet the criteria listed on page 6 of the 1998 Boy Scout Requirements book. (No. 33218)