Land Surveying Merit Badge

Date: 03/17/2019

Event: Boy Scout Survey Merit Badge introduction and Initial Point Sunset Hike

Sponsors: United Surveyors of Arizona and Survey Innovation Group

Time: 3pm to Sunset

Location: Estrella Mountain Park and PIR (Initial Point Monument)

Come to Estrella Park for an introduction to the great profession of Land Surveying!  If you like the outdoors, hunting for treasure, solving puzzles, math & history, and cutting edge technology this is for you!  We will begin by providing a brief overview of what land surveying is and what a land surveyor does.  After that we will introduce the scouts to all of the technology land surveyors use on a daily basis.  This will include 3D scanners, robotic total stations, GPS instruments and drones!  All that attend will get hands on experience with this equipment at each of the learning stations.

Immediately following this event, we will caravan just down the road to the Phoenix International Raceway which is where the Arizona Initial Point is located.  This monument was originally built in 1851 by John R. Bartlett, Commissioner, U.S. Boundary Commission, while making a reconnaissance survey for the United States-Mexico boundary under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.  In 1865, John A. Clark, Surveyor General for New Mexico and Arizona selected the Bartlett monument as the initial point for all surveys in Arizona.  In the last 150 years some 62 million acres of land have been surveyed from this point!  The monument itself sits atop a small mountain just to the East of and overlooking the raceway.  We will meet in the parking lot and walk as a group along the short path leading to the top where we will take pictures at sunset with some historical survey equipment and the monument.