A Summertime Pack Activity
This program can be tailored for other Scouting units as well and may be conducted at any time of year. For obvious reasons, it should span 80 days.
What is it?
“Reading Around the World in 80 Days” is a summertime pack activity that engages Scouts to improve their reading skills and learn a little bit about our world along the way.
Who is it for?
“Reading Around the World in 80 Days” is intended for Cub Scouts and their parents and family members. With some minor adjustments, this program is suitable for Scouts and Scouters of any age.
When is it?
Coincidentally, the school year in most areas allow for 70 to 80 days off from school during the summer. For the Leander Independent School District, it is just under 80 days. Beginning the program on Memorial Day weekend and ending just before the first day of school is typically 80 days.
This program can be conducted at any time of the year but, for obvious reasons, must span exactly 80 days.
How does it work?
This is a family activity. Scouts earn miles for each minute they spend reading during the 80 days that the program runs. A Parent or family member tracks and validates the time spent reading by logging those hours in the provided log.
What to read
Any material deemed appropriate reading for the Scout’s grade level and abilities by the parent(s) or family member(s) is acceptable for this contest. It is recommended to allow the Scouts to participate in the selection of the books to increase engagement.
Earning Miles
Scouts earn 5 miles per minute of reading. They accumulate miles throughout the summer to reach milestones. There are 9 milestones corresponding to the distance around the globe at various significant lines of latitude including 80°, 70°, 66.5° (Arctic / Antarctic circle), 60°, 50°, 40°, 30°, 23.5° (Tropic of Cancer / Capricorn), and the equator.
Miles for audiobooks
Audiobooks exercise many of the same skills that reading does like vocabulary building, visualizing descriptions, memory development, and analytical thinking. Audiobooks also develop critical listening skills where reading does not and reading develops spelling skills where audiobooks don’t. For these reasons, miles should be awarded to Scouts who log miles listening to audiobooks. The number of miles awarded should be determined by the program leader based on the goals of the program.
We recommend that audiobook miles be awarded at no less than 4 miles per minute and consideration should be given to awarding full miles (5). For Scouts with learning disabilities, full mileage should be awarded.
Learning disabilities
If your Scout has a learning disability that affects his/ her reading, contact the program coordinator for alternatives. Audiobooks may be a good alternative in some cases. Other ideas are welcome and may be adopted on a case by case basis.
Reaching milestones
As each milestone is reached, and at least weekly, your Scout chooses a topic from their reading, perhaps a location at or near that line of latitude (either north or south), to learn about. Some suggestions locations are included in the chart below, but the topic may also be a person, thing, or time period they are reading about. They are all fair game. The time spent doing this activity should be about 30 minutes and is intended to be a shared activity between the Scout and their family. Time spent on this activity earns miles for the Scout at the same rate as reading.
The chart below includes each milestone that can be achieved, including total miles required to circumnavigate the globe at that latitude, sample locations on or near that latitude, total required minutes to complete the achievement, and the average number of minutes per day.
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Meetings
Scouts and their parent(s) or family member(s) should meet regularly, at least monthly, at a place and time agreed upon by participants. The purpose of the meeting is a shared experience and to relate the reading they have done to Scouting. Scouts can talk about what they read and the places they learned about. Encourage them to talk about what they read in terms of the Scout Oath and Law. Which characters are trustworthy? Why do you think so?
The format of the meeting will be determined in advance by the participating families. Some suggestions for these meetings include:
- Adopt a book club format
- Choose a monthly theme such as Arctic Circle for the first month, Tropic (of Cancer/Capricorn) for the second, and equator for the third.
- Air an age appropriate TV show or movie related the Around the world theme perhaps culminating by airing the original (or remake) “Around the World in 80 Days”.
In addition, the families and pack coordinator(s) should meet for a kickoff meeting to decide on the details for the 3 summertime meetings and how to track and report the miles earned for the scouts.
Other program ideas
There are some fun ways to extend the “Reading Around the World in 80 Days” program elements to promote engagement and improve management of the program.
Create a Facebook Group. Facebook groups promote discussions which is great for generating interest and engagement. The group can be set as private which requires group admins to approve requests to join before they can view the content. You can also set the group as hidden which means the group will not show up in any search results so members must be invited.
You can make the group a management tool where notices of upcoming meetings, topic of the month, or other program information can be posted or it can be a discussion forum where Scouts with their cyberchip and under proper supervision can engage in discussions about their books and track their progress.
Online map. We found a free, online map that allows you to easily update the url to indicate which countries have been visited. The site is called Amcharts and the url is http://www.amcharts.com/visited_countries. The really cool part of this is that visited countries are tracked in the url. For example, this url indicates that both the USA and Russia were visited: http://www.amcharts.com/visited_countries/#RU,US. Add another comma followed by another country code and the map will highlight the additional country as well. Using this resource allows the unit to track the combined countries visited while individual Scouts and / or dens can track their own progress.
Movie nights. Movie nights can be a lot of fun for Scouts and adults alike. Make it a fun event by making popcorn or maybe s’mores. Add a healthy dring like your favorite juice. Movie nights can be done virtually using one of the many streaming / sharing apps like Zoom or Webex. Many online streaming platforms like Netflix, Movies Anywhere, or Amazon have their own group application but they usually require that everyone have an account that gives them access to the content.
There are some other considerations for a movie night:
- Remember the age groups of your Scouts. Younger Scouts will have an earlier bedtime so don’t start the movie too late. A weekend movie day may be a good alternative.
- Most movies are around 90 minutes to 2 hours. Many kids movies are closer to the 90 minute mark. This can be challenging to a Scouts attention span.
- Prescreen the movie to be sure it is age appropriate, especially those that are PG or higher.
- Older movies may have been well intentioned at the time but some are now deemed inappropriate, particularly where they use characters cast from racial stereotypes.
Combine with other reading challenges like the Scholastic Read-a-Palooza Reading Challenge. The Scholastic summer reading challenge begins before and ends after the 80 day timeframe chosen for this program but the times overlap. You can get more information at https://www.scholastic.com/summer/home/. There may be other similar programs offered by your local libray as well.
