Geologist Activity Badge

A few days before our trip to the Northwest, Dayle invited me to teach the Geologist Activity Badge class for his Webelo den.  I quickly told him I would, as I had already prepared a Open Office presentation for use in teaching geology to Patty B's 4th grade class in South Jordan.

I knew the Northwest was covered with nothing but volcanic rock, so I decided to pack small samples of Utah sedimentary rock into my suitcase.  The rocks made my suitcase rather heavy, but the airline people took my luggage and loaded it onto the 737, without question.

A time to remember, for sure, was of the Webelo's meeting.  During my introduction , I mentioned to the scouts, that in the near future they would be camping in the "boonies," and that they could always make use of rock collecting skills. Well, several hands went up and the question was raised, "What are the boonies?"

Well now, this question sort of surprised me, and I quickly realized that these kids really had never heard this term before.  My mind searched frantically, in the period of a millisecond, for an appropriate response.  I told them that the "boonies," is anyplace that is away from civilization, in the great outdoors.

I would like to think that the word "boonies" maybe originated during the time of Daniel Boone, the great outdoorsman; but I don't know for sure.

If "boonies" is typed into Wikipedia, one is directed to "Boondocks," with the following explanation:  "The expression was introduced to English by American military personnel serving in the Philippines during the early years of the 20th century.  It derives from the Tagalog word "bundok", meaning "mountain".


I remember in the mid-60s, a popular song called, "Down in the Boondocks."  


Well, so what?  Now, back to the Webelo's den meeting!  I had also brought with me cardboard squares, about a foot square or so, to be used for individual rock displays.  Dayle, Jr. had the hot glue guns all ready to go, and when the kids were getting tired of listening to my geology lecture, I told them we were going to go rock hunting.  Their interest was all of a sudden revitalized.  


I emptied my sample bag of about 8 kinds of  sedimentary rocks, and told the kids to start collecting and identifying.  For the next 20 minutes or so, the two Dayles' were kept busy gluing rocks to cardboard.  At the end of the meeting the proud scouts left with collections in hands.