Environmental Science Merit Badge 2014

    Five scouts from Troop 67 have begun working on the Environmental Science Merit Badge with Mr. Rittberg as their counselor.  Mr. Rittberg's engineering background, along with his employment as a manager with the Emergency Response Group of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, make him a great resource for our scouts who need to complete this eagle required badge.
   

    The first few sessions have seen the scouts visit an air quality monitoring station to learn about what our air is tested for and how the testing is conducted, And the boys dressed for and demonstrated a HAZMAT clean up drill both for a spill on land and a spill in a stream. 

     At the air quality monitoring station the boys learned that most of the testing is for very small, microscopic compounds, although testing for particulate matter is also part of the testing.  The tests are run on certain days and intervals which are in conjunction with air quality testing nationwide.  The results are send in to the U.S. EPA for compilation and analysis. 

    To see the complete set of photos from these meetings, visit the troop 67 photo album.