Cooking Merit Badge Revisions

Effective January 1, 2014, a revised Cooking Merit Badge and a new Sustainability Merit Badge join the list of Eagle-required merit badges. Some key points on the change are below:
• Sustainability, a new merit badge, joins Environmental Science as an Eagle Scout option after its debut at the 2013 jamboree.
• Cooking, meanwhile, will become Eagle-required as of Jan. 1, 2014.
• The total number of merit badges required for the Eagle Scout Award will remain at 21. In other words, instead of 12 Eagle-required badges and 9 elective badges, a Scout must earn 13 Eagle-required and 8 elective badges.
• Regardless of when a Scout earned the Life rank or began working on Eagle, unless he fulfills all the requirements—with the exception of his board of review—before Jan. 1, 2014, he must earn the Cooking merit badge to become an Eagle Scout.
• If Scouts have already started on the Cooking Merit Badge, they may switch to the new requirements or continue with the old ones until the badge is completed.
• If a scout has earned the badge under the old requirements, as scout need not re-earn the badge under the new requirements in order to qualify for Eagle Scout.
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There are two important articles to read for those of you on the trail to Eagle Scout:

See http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2012/10/17/cooking-sustainability-merit-badges-to-become-eagle-required/ and http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2012/11/01/faqs-about-cooking-and-sustainability-merit-badges/