How to Have the Counselor Discussion for the Swing! Nova Award

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The Cub Scout Nova award Swing! requires a discussion with a counselor. Learn some questions that will get the Cub Scout talking.

If you’re following along with the Swing! Cub Scout Nova award series, your Cub Scout will finish up the requirements this week!

Cub Scout Nova Award Swing! Requirement 5: Discuss with your counselor how engineering and simple machines affect your everyday life.

Cub Scout Nova Award Counselor Discussions

As your Cub Scout worked on Swing!, many of the requirements called for your child to have a discussion with their counselor.

Here’s a quick summary:

Requirement 1: Discuss two questions or ideas that you learned from the science shows or books.

Requirement 2: Discuss what kind of science, technology, engineering, and math was used in your Scout’s selected activity. The choices were completing an adventure, taking apart a household item, or playing two sports.

Requirement 3: Discuss what you found out about levers from exploring the types of levers and designing your own lever.

Requirement 4: Discuss the equipment or tools that used levers in the place you visited.

Requirement 5: Discuss how engineering and simple machines affect your life.

These discussions are easy to have if you’re the counselor. If you aren’t the counselor, taking photos or recording videos is a great way to share what your child has learned. Neither of my sons is the greatest note-taker, so visual “notes” like these are a perfect solution.

Requirement 5 sounds pretty lofty for an elementary school aged-child, so the counselor most likely will need to kick off the conversation. I asked my friend Betsy for her advice on the best way to do this.

She suggested that you start by asking what types of machines they learned about that use levers such as wheelbarrows, hammers, bats, etc.

Next, have the child explain how these machines are helpful. Wheelbarrows help us carry a heavier load, hammers help us pull nails out of wood more easily, bats help us hit the ball farther, etc.

Remember, these are young kids, so make sure your expectations aren’t too high for this conversation.

Recording Completion of the Cub Scout Nova Awards

There isn’t a place in the Cub Scout handbook to record completing extra awards such as Nova, but I would make sure he or she writes it in there anyway. They could put it at the end of the adventure tracking pages or on one of the notes pages. Boy Scouts record everything in their handbooks, so this is good practice for our Cub Scouts.

After the Cub Scout has completed all the requirements, your pack’s advancement chairperson will need to know. If another adult is serving as the counselor, confirm that he or she will communicate with the advancement chairperson.

Your Cub Scout may be the first person in the pack to earn this award. If so, the advancement person may not know what to do. You can share the following information with them.

BSA’s Advancement Report

Completion of the Cub Scout Nova award needs to be recorded on BSA’s advancement report form.

Some packs may fill out the paper copy, but I suspect that most of you use some type of electronic system such as Scoutbook. If you do, just record it in that system. (In Scoutbook, it’s under the “awards” section.)

Whenever your advancement person prints out their advancement report, the Nova award will be on there.

Note: I’m only familiar with Scoutbook, but I assume that other Cub Scout electronic tracking systems work the same.

Cub Scout Nova Award Recognition Devices

For the first Nova award your Cub Scout earns, they’ll get this awesome patch. It’s considered a temporary patch, so you don’t sew it onto the uniform like you do rank patches. It comes with a loop, so you can hang it from the right pocket button.

For each additional Nova award that your child completes, they’ll get a pi pin to put on their patch. There’s a total of nine Nova awards, so they could earn the patch plus eight pins.

The patches and pins can be purchased at your local Scout Shop. As with all Cub Scout achievements, present the award to the Scout as soon as possible after they’ve earned it.

I hope your Cub Scout has enjoyed learning about levers! Leave me a comment to let me know their favorite activity.