Earning Nova Awards in Cub Scouts

Congratulations on completing another Cub Scout year! Have you taken a look at your current Cub Scout rank requirements and want to add something more? As we planned out our Cub Scout year, we added in Nova Awards to our plan. It might seem a little overwhelming to incorporate the Nova in addition to the required and elective adventures. But really, we found that it generally didn’t take much extra work with a little planning and could add lots of extra fun for the scouts.

Additionally, if you are feeling a little stressed about making rank, be sure to jump on over to our Beginning of the Year Campout Plans for Tiger Scout, Wolf Scout, Bear Scout and Webelos Scout. These plans will help you make rank easily and free up some time for working on elective advancements and Nova Awards.

What are Cub Scout Nova Awards?

Cub Scout Nova Awards can be earned by Wolf Scouts, Bear Scouts, and Webelos Scouts, including Arrow of Light Scouts. Nova Awards take a deep dive into the area of STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The Nova Awards allow your scouts to explore and investigate STEM concepts in more depth, through hands-on exploration and the scouts own curiosity.

These are not a required part of Cub Scouts and do not change how you make your Cub Scout rank. Instead, Nova Awards are an additional award you can help your scouts earn. There are 11 different Nova Awards and 1 SuperNova Award that you could earn spread out across the 4 different STEM area. You can earn all 11 or earn just 1, the flexibility is there to fit whatever works best for your den.

You will need a Nova counselor, but don’t worry, this isn’t so hard. Your Nova counselor must be at least 21 years old with an interest in STEM. They will need to register as Nova Counselor and complete the Youth Protection Training, but this is all paperwork.

Structure of the Nova Awards

Each Nova Award is usually five or six parts. We would incorporate some of these parts into our meetings. Other parts would be individual work with a conversation. Another part usually included a field trip meeting on the weekends.

The field trips tended to be the most fun for the scouts. We found that our community was very willing to accommodate us. Additionally, most places usually had a STEM enthusiast on hand who loved sharing the science, technology, engineering or mathematics in their career. Just be sure to ask when you set up the field trip.

To learn about all the different Nova Awards and the specific parts for each award, visit the Boy Scouts of America Nova page. This page provides the extra requirement for the 11 Nova Awards and the 2 SuperNova Awards that your Cub Scouts can earn during Wolf, Bear, and Webelos year.

Part 1 of the Nova Awards:

For each Nova Award we have explored, there was always 1 hour of reading or watching videos on the topic. Your scouts can also do a combination of reading or watching to earn this requirement. We assigned these as an at home responsibility for the scouts who wanted to earn the reward. This allows each scout to explore the STEM concept more in depth.

Then we ask the scouts to attend our regular meeting a little early to discuss their reading/watching and their questions. This way if a scout did not want to participate in the Nova, they just showed up at the time of the meeting. This can work as a great gathering activity as your Nova counselor will keep your scouts engaged while you greet the later arrivals and set up your meeting place.

As another option, you can ask the scouts to stay a few minutes after the meeting to meet with their Nova counselor. In addition, if all your scouts choose to participate, you could include the counselor discussions during your den meetings.

Part 2 of Nova Award:

We coordinated our meetings so that Part 2 was always an elective so that the scouts were getting both the belt loop and the Nova Award. This took a bit of planning, but was definitely worth it to make the long-term planning easier. Additionally, it’s always great when you can cover more without doing more, since we are already doing so much.

Usually one den meeting allowed us to earn the elective adventure. With certain Nova Awards, we were able to include part 3 or 4 as well. Other times, the Cub Scout elective required more than one meeting. In this case, we would divide the elective advancement into two meetings and incorporate part 3 (and sometimes part 4, if it is a 6 step Nova Award) into our two meeting agendas.

If you are in the planning stages, see our earlier post on planning for Nova Awards for Wolf Scouts, Bear Scouts, and Webelos Scouts.

Part 3 of Nova Award (Part 3 and 4 of 6 Step Nova Awards):

We usually incorporated part 3 of each Nova Award into our second meeting on any elective. The second meeting allowed us to finish up the elective requirements and discuss part 3. If you are working to earn a 6 step Nova Award, you can usually incorporate part 4 into the meetings too! Occasionally, part 3 or part 4 (of the 6 step Nova Awards) fits better with your field trip.

Sometimes we were able to include this with the elective requirements in one meeting, other times we needed the 2 meetings to cover everything. To save yourself time, try to plan both meetings together, this way you know you meet all the requirements.

These were a great time to get families involved to help teach concepts that may be outside the leaders’ expertise. As you are planning, think about which activities would be great to have additional hands or another perspective. Then reach out to your families either at the previous den meetings or via e-mail or text to ask for volunteers. You’ll be surprised how much people are willing to help if you are specific enough in your request.

Part 4 of Nova Award (Maybe be Part 5 of a 6 Step Nova Award):

This was almost always a field trip. Some of the Nova Awards don’t actually include a field trip, but ask the scouts to try out an hour of coding or virtually try something.

We tried to take the scouts somewhere fun each month so this tied in perfectly with our plan. Sometimes the adventures had a field trip, but more often than not, our field trips were Nova related. The Nova Awards allowed us to plan a field trip each month that our Pack had fewer planned. On occasion, we were able to plan a trip for the entire pack to attend.

When we called to schedule, we let the people know we were working on our Nova Award for scouts. We explained that we would love to have someone talk about science, technology, engineering, or mathematics depending on the Nova we were working on. Be sure to explain the age of your scouts and what specifically you would like to learn more about or see. Then ask if they would be willing to provide some time for answering questions from the scouts.

Part 5 of Nova Award:

This was almost always an outside of scouts activity for our Cub Scout den. We usually paired it with our part 1 discussion after we completed our other Nova Award requirements. This helped our Nova counselor immensely. Our Nova counselor only needed to meet with our scouts near the end of each Nova Award earned to discuss the science involved.

Part 5 (or 6 in the 6 step Nova Awards) usually asked the scouts to figure out how the specific Nova skill was applied in their everyday life. Our scouts had some good ideas after reading/watching to learn, the elective adventure and the field trip. In addition, tying these 2 together made it easier for your Nova counselor to check off on the scouts progress.

Cub Scout Super Nova Award

The Cub Scout SuperNova Award is very different from the Nova Awards. First, there are only 2 SuperNova Awards. The Dr. Luis W. Alvarez SuperNova Award can be earned either Wolf or Bear year. While the Dr. Charles Townes SuperNova Award is earned during Webelos year. Both SuperNova Awards are a ten step process and require a SuperNova Mentor who is an expert in a STEM field.

This is a much larger undertaking than a Nova Award. However, it is definitely possible to complete during a scouting year with your Cub Scouts. If you plan to work towards the SuperNova Award, please inform your families and let them know that it will require additional work outside of Cub Scouts. Most of the requirements we were able to include within our den meetings. To do this, we did structure some of our meetings specifically towards working on the Cub Scout SuperNova Award.

Wolf Scout Super Nova Award

During Wolf Scout year, the SuperNova Award pairs with two different Wolf elective adventures. The Code of the Wolf meets the first requirement and the Call of the Wild meets the second requirement. Code of the Wolf is a very popular elective to use during the Wolf Scout year so plan this elective carefully. You can only use it for one Nova Award.

If you choose to try complete the SuperNova Award during Wolf Scout year, you may wish to skip Cubs Can Code and 1-2-3 Go! Otherwise plan to use either Option A or Option B that is included with each Nova Award when leaders wish to skip a specific adventure.

Bear Scout Super Nova Award

During Bear Scout year, the SuperNova Award pairs with two different Bear elective adventures. Make It Move meets the first requirement and Forensics meets the second requirement. While these two elective adventures are paired with an additional Nova Award, there is always a second elective adventure that leaders could pick instead. This makes completing the SuperNova Award a little easier during the Bear Scout year, plus your scouts are an additional year older.

Webelos or Arrow of Light Scout Super Nova Award

During Webelos Scout years, the SuperNova Award pairs with up to five different Webelos elective adventures. The first requirement asks you to complete three of the following: Adventures in Space, Engineer, Option A and Option B. The Second requirement can be met using only Webelos elective adventures, but it also includes an Option A and B as well. The elective adventures include Build It, First Responder, Into the Woods, and Into the Wild. Into the Woods and Into the Wild are the two Webelos electives paired with Nova Wild, so you may wish to save one for SuperNova and one for Nova Wild. You can only use it for one Nova Award.

Nova Awards Final Thoughts

Adding a Nova Award to our Cub Scout yearly plan took at most 1 additional meeting and 1 field trip per award for us. This made it very much worth the effort to add Nova Awards into our Wolf, Bear and Webelos scout years. The scouts seemed to enjoy watching programs related to STEM activities and especially loved the additional field trips. If you are a Wolf Scout, don’t miss our Planning Wolf Scout Year: Nova Awards.

It did dictate many of our elective adventures so that we could pair an elective with each Nova, but the scouts definitely didn’t seem to mind. Plus the part 3, which was the most extra work for the meetings, really wasn’t that much extra per Nova. Many times we could fit the Nova into the meeting for the elective with only the additional field trip. So if your scouts love field trips, be sure to plan to add Nova Awards to your scouting curriculum.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on Nova Awards. Drop us a comment below and let us know which Nova Award you are most excited to help your scouts earn this year. We’d appreciate if you would take a moment to subscribe to our newsletter. You will receive more great tips for scouting as well as a freebie from time to time.

Hi, I’m Nicole.

Here at Creatingbutterflies we provide families with practical solutions to real life problems for everything parenting, scouting, dual language, and enjoying time outdoors. We are a family of 6 with 4 wonderful becoming bilingual children who loves scouting, camping, and hiking with their family. Mom is an educator and dad is a firefighter/paramedic.