Dewberry’s Gainesville, Virginia, office hosted local Troop 581 of the Boy Scouts of America for a survey merit badge day, held on October 10, 2015. Dewberry employees from two offices organized this second session with required exercises for the scouts to earn their badge.
Nine scouts participated in this session and earned their survey merit badge. The scouts learned the basics of land surveying and how it relates to the community. They discussed GPS, its importance and its effects on surveying, as well as other relevant topics such as the application of technology. The scouts were also introduced to career opportunities within the surveying profession.
The requirements for the badge include a knowledge of first aid for the types of injuries that can occur while surveying, as well as proper identification of poisonous plants and animals that inhabit the area. The scouts were required to find and mark the corners of a five-sided lot, measure the angles and distance between each corner, and compute the error of closure. With their field notes gathered, the scouts then drew a plat of the survey, to scale, and wrote a metes and bounds description. They also used a corner marker as a benchmark with an assumed elevation of 100 feet and, using a level and rod, determined the elevation of the other four corners.
With more than 100 badges currently in existence, the surveying badge is one of the original badges that still remain available for scouts to obtain, dating back to 1911. It is historically one of the most difficult to receive as merit badge counselors who are also professional land surveyors are in short supply.
