Boy Scouts of America

Landscape Architecture Merit Badge

Landscape Architecture
Merit Badge

Scouting America Merit Badge Hub

Scouting America
Merit Badge Hub

LandscapeArchitecture

Requirement Updates 2025

This Merit Badge’s Requirements have recently been updated in 2025 Scouting America Requirements (33216). Please read more about “Requirements” on the Merit Badge Hub homepage. The previous version of the Merit Badge requirements can be found in Scoutbook.

Landscape Architecture Merit Badge Overview

Landscape architects design and plan the various outdoor spaces in modern communities – neighborhood parks, soccer fields, school grounds, places of worship, office parks, shopping malls, cemeteries, and lakes – creating outdoor places that people will care about and want to visit.
Landscape-Architecture_merit-badge-overview

Landscape Architecture Merit Badge Requirements

The previous version of the Merit Badge requirements can be found in Scoutbook

The requirements will be fed dynamically using the scout book integration
1. Go to a completed landscape project that a landscape architect has designed. Before you visit the site, obtain a plan of the design from the landscape architect if one is available.
2. After completing requirement 1, discuss the following with your counselor:
  • (a) Tell whether the design had separate spaces, a defined point of entry, a clear path system, and sun and shade variety.
  • (b) Discuss how any structures, the designated seating, eating, or parking areas suited the overall design.
  • (c) Explain how the design reflected consideration for the comfort, shelter, and security of the users.
  • (d) Discuss how the choice of trees, shrubs, and ground covers used in the project contributed to its appeal and function.

3. Identify five shrubs, five trees, and one ground cover, being sure that you select examples of different shapes, sizes, and textures. With the help of your counselor or a local nursery, choose plants that will grow in your area. Bring pictures of the different planting materials or, if possible, examples of their branches, leaves, or flowers to a group such as your troop or class at school. Be prepared to tell how you might use each in the design of a landscape and the maintenance that would follow.
4. After obtaining permission from the appropriate authority, look at and study a place of worship, school grounds, or a public building and identify where most people arrive by bus or car. Then do the following:
  • (a) Using a measuring tape, measure and draw the main site entry and its nearby area. Define the scale of your drawing. Be sure to include the driveway and sidewalk or path that leads to the building's main entry. Indicate any sidewalks, structures, trees and plants, lights, drains, utilities, or other site furnishings within the study area. Make two copies of this plan and save the original, then do 4b and 4c using the copies.
  • (b) On one copy of your site plan, use directional arrows to indicate where the water drains across the site, where ditches occur, and where water stands for a longer period of time.
  • (c) Decide how you can make the place safer and more comfortable for those using it. Redesign the area on another copy of the plan. You may want to include new walks, covered waiting areas, benches, space-defining plantings of trees and shrubs, and drainage structures.

5. Identify three career opportunities that would use skills and knowledge in landscape architecture. Pick one and research the training, education, certification requirements, experience, and expenses associated with entering the field. Research the prospects for employment, starting salary, advancement opportunities, and career goals associated with this career. Discuss what you learned with your counselor and whether you might be interested in this career.

Get the Landscape Architecture Merit Badge Pamphlet

Merit Badge Pamphlets are now free and publicly available. Note: Always check www.scouting.org/skills/merit-badges/all/ for the latest requirements.

View Related Merit Badges

Bray Barnes

Director, Global Security Innovative
Strategies

Bray Barnes is a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, Silver
Beaver, Silver Antelope, Silver Buffalo, and Learning for Life Distinguished
Service Award. He received the Messengers of Peace Hero award from
the royal family of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and he’s a life member of
the 101st Airborne Association and Vietnam Veterans Association. Barnes
serves as a senior fellow for the Global Federation of Competitiveness
Councils, a nonpartisan network of corporate CEOs, university presidents, and
national laboratory directors. He has also served as a senior executive for the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, leading the first-responder program
and has two U.S. presidential appointments

David Alexander

Managing Member Calje

David Alexander is a Baden-Powell Fellow, Summit Bechtel Reserve philanthropist, and recipient of the Silver Buffalo and Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He is the founder of Caljet, one of the largest independent motor fuels terminals in the U.S. He has served the Arizona Petroleum Marketers Association, Teen Lifeline, and American Heart Association. A triathlete who has completed hundreds of races, Alexander has also mentored the women’s triathlon team at Arizona State University.

Glenn Adams

President, CEO & Managing Director
Stonetex Oil Corp.

Glenn Adams is a recipient of the Silver Beaver, Silver Antelope, Silver Buffalo, and Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. He is the former president of the National Eagle Scout Association and established the Glenn A. and Melinda W. Adams National Eagle Scout Service Project of the Year Award. He has more than 40 years of experience in the oil, gas, and energy fields, including serving as a president, owner, and CEO. Adams has also received multiple service awards from the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers.