Textile Merit Badge tips and advice requested.

[ams]

Dear other MB Councilors. I am starting to put together a "Merit Badge Class" on Textile per request of the Merit Badge Coordiator in our troop.
Does anyone have any experience with this MB? Have you found "fun" ways of introducing the material? Any favorites in #3?
Thank You inadvace for your input.

[wagionvigil]

welcpme to the forum. Pleas eonly post a suggestion once. I will leave it here and remove it in the general information. Take a few minutes and use the search option on the forum and se if there is any information about what you are interested in.

[lambeausam]

We are fortunate to have a fabric mill nearby with a staff that loves to host tours. I haven't taken any kids there yet, but know others that have and said it's a great experience for the boys to see the construction of the cloth.

[AquilaNegra2]

Our local Joann's (fabric store) lent us an employee who took the boys on an hour tour and explained all the different fabrics and what they were used for. They cut swatches for the boys, and provided magnifying glasses to examine the differences in construction. They also gave us a classroom in back to take care of other requirements, including a tensile test. It was a lot of fun. One of the moms who makes her own clothes signed up as the counselor. The boys learned a lot.

[ams]

I am now able to answer my own question! I had two 45 minute sessions.
Before hand I bought, and labeled and made swatches of materials. 2
Worksheet well done on meritbadge.com. Suggested they print up and read the book.
First meeting:
I had a "pre-requisite" of 13 terms (3 in #1+10 in #4)
1 crock pot with weeds and a second with red onion skins. Scouts wrote their names on cotton swatches
and put into crock pots. 3e
USB Microscope used to look at woven, knitted, etc materials on my laptop (we could all look at same time) 3c
Discussed: Examples of everyday textiles, 2b,2c.
I burt a swatch of cotton, then nylon. They really got into how the balled up and smelled really bad.

Second Meeting:
Pre-req of 2d, 5 and 6.
I bought roving and we made felt. Takes about 30 minutes. This was for fun, get them to have something to show for it,
and to keep them busy!
During which we discussed 2d, 5 and 6.
Voila. Cost a bit of money, but I can offer to various troops around here. (for free obviously)

[RWSmith]

....USB Microscope used to look at woven, knitted, etc materials on my laptop (we could all look at same time) ....

What an awesome idea! (You did a great job there.)