Conservation

Grade 1
Awarded to boys who have regularly attended a course of instruction and who qualify as follows:
1.	Start a scrap book with cuttings from papers and magazine articles referring to any aspect of resources or species conservation.
2.	Identify from posters 7 out of 10 British plants or animals protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1982.
3.	*() Either**
	Plant and maintain an area of garden to attract and support butterflies.
	or
	Go butterfly or moth spotting and identify six different species of adult or caterpillar in the wild, observing and noting details of activity, food plant etc.
	or
	Obtain from a stockist eggs or larva of any British butterfly or moth and rear through to adult.
4.	Choose and complete a project from the following list appropriate to the season:
	a.	Spring: Build, erect and monitor bird or bat boxes.
	b.	Autumn: Collect and propagate tree seeds for replanting.
	c.	Winter: Erect and provision a bird table over a period of a moth, record species visiting.
(*) Grade 1 involves activity with butterflies and moths. In some areas the number of species and individuals are limited by climate. Alternative work with other insect life or mammals, to a similar standard and agreed by the instructor, is permitted.

Grade 2.
Awarded to those who have regularly attended a course of instruction and quality as follows:
1.	Maintain or start a scrapbook as in Grade 1
2.	Understand the advantages and disadvantages of introducing or re-introducing species to the wild.
3.	Visit a site of Special Scientific Interest, or a selected nature reserve, accompanies by a suitable guide. Write up the visit in the scrap book.
4.	Take part in some conservation project on a nature reserve lasting for a minimum or four hours.
5.	Prepare a display about an endangered species or resource for presentation to the Company.

Grade 3.
Awarded to those who hold Grade 2 and regularly attend a further course of instruction and qualify as follows:
1.	Continue to maintain a Conservation scrap book. This may now concentrate on one particular aspect of conservation.
2.	Understand the principle problems associated with the use of fertilisers (nitrates) and pest and weed control chemicals, together with their effect on the environment and other living things.
3.	Consider the changes that have occurred in the British countryside over the past 25 years and the effect that this has had on wild life (N.B. this should as far as possible refer to local changes, and thus may include the local loss of woods and hedgerow, or the movement of birds and animals into urban areas etc.) The identified changes should be illustrated in some way for a display.
4.	Compare the forms of life that exist in different environments - e.g. chalk down, marsh, school playing field.
5.	Take part in conservation work on a nature reserve and assist in at least two tasks totalling at least six hours.