First CLASS SCOUT

For example, if you found your normal stride to be 130 steps per 100 meters and the destination is 400 meters away, it will take you 520 steps (130 x 4 = 520) to the destination. Your running stride might be 105 steps per hundred meters, so that same distance will require only 420 "running" steps. Because you are growing, recheck your number of steps per hundred meters about every six months. Some Scouts find it easier to measure distances by counting every step along the way. Others have better luck counting each time their right foot touches the ground. That's called apace.

MEASURING HEIGHTS

Here are some simple ways to measure a tree's height or to estimate the elevations of towers, waterfalls, cliffs, and walls:

1. Have a friend whose height you know stand beside the object you want to measure; tree, for example. Step back and bold a straight stick upright at am's length in front of you.

2. With one eye closed, sight over the stick so that the top of it appears to touch the top of your of your friend's head. PIace your thumbnail on the stick where it seems to touch the base of the tree.

3. Now move the stick up to see how many more times this measurement on the stick will "fit" into the height of the tree. Multiply that number by our friend's height and you will know the aproximate height of the tree.