Venturing (Boy Scouts of America)
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| Owner | Boy Scouts of America | ||
| Age range | 14 through 21 years | ||
| Country | United States | ||
| Founded | February 9, 1998 | ||
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| President | Pratik Vaidya | ||
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Website BSA Venturing |
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   Standard uniform colors for Venturing
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Venturing is part of the program of the Boy Scouts of America for young men and women. Members must be at least 14 years old, or 13 years old and have completed eighth grade, through age 21.
The purpose of Venturing is to provide positive experiences to help youth mature and to prepare them to become responsible adults.
The Venturing program has a long history within the BSA. The program got its start in the 1930s as the "Senior Scout" Division for boys 15 and older. The Senior Scout programs included the Sea Scouts, Air Scouts, Explorer Scouts, Rover Scouts, and a few others. Explorer Scouts focused on advanced camping and worked on advancement leading to the Ranger Award. Sea Scouts and Air Scouts were nautical and aviation-focused programs, respectively.
In 1949 the Senior Scout Division became the Explorer Division. Sea Scouts became Sea Explorers, Air Scouts became Air Explorers, and Explorer Scouts simply Explorers. The Explorer program became less of an advanced outdoor program and more a broader program for young men, with the minimum age lowered to 14 years old. Explorers got a new advancement program leading to the Silver Award.
Explorer advancement was dropped in 1959. The Air Explorer program was eliminated in 1964 and the Sea Explorer program had changes made. The program was further changed to be more appealing to older youth, with career exploration becoming a bigger part of the program.
The BSA allowed young women ages 14–20 to join special-interest Explorer posts beginning in 1969. Many posts became co-ed. The focus on career exploration was increased and, as the years progressed, Exploring focused more on career exploration posts, though outdoor and sports-oriented Posts continued to thrive.
Posts that primarily consisted of seminars at high school with guest speakers were designated as Career Awareness Explorer posts in the early 1980s. This was the fastest growing segment of Exploring and the BSA during the 1980s. These posts were realigned into the new Learning for Life subsidiary in 1991, and the posts were then designated as High School Career Awareness groups and the youth were no longer considered to be Explorers.
The Exploring program was reorganized and split into two program categories in 1998. All the career-oriented posts were moved to Learning for Life under the name Exploring, while the rest (including outdoor-oriented posts) became the new Venturing program. Sea Exploring was renamed Sea Scouting and placed under the Venturing program. In February 2016, Sea Scouting became a separate program division.
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