Dewberry’s Mt. Laurel office hosted local members of the Boy Scouts of America for survey merit badge day on May 23. Dewberry employees organized required exercises for the scouts to earn their badge. The scouts learned the basics of land surveying and how it relates to the community.
Dewberry’s Robert Telschow, professional land surveyor and merit badge counselor, and his colleagues supervised the eight scouts who participated in survey merit badge day. All eights scouts who participated in this session earned their survey merit badge.
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 must also 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, scouts must draw a plat of the survey to scale and write a metes and bounds description. They also use a corner marker as a benchmark with an assumed elevation of 100 feet and, using a level and rod, determine the elevation of the other four corners. They discuss GPS, its importance and its effects on surveying, as well as other relevant topics such as the application of technology, types of surveying, and career opportunities within the surveying profession.
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.
