I honestly don't know if I found this list somewhere or its something I came up with, but I wrote it down years back:

1. health (psychological stress, traumatic and environmental injuries)
2. personal protection (clothing, shelter, insects, fire)
3. signaling (fire, whistle, mirror)
4. sustenance (water and maybe food)
5. location & travel (using a map, compass, GPS)

and these are in order of typical importance.

Almost all the Scouts in my son's small (16 boys) troop have earned the Wilderness Survival merit badge. They see it as a challenge - a kind of rite of passage.

My son hasn't taken it yet as he's nervous about the overnight in a shelter. He's mostly worried about mosquittos, rain, and cold.

They are pretty strict about the limited list of items the Scouts are allowed to bring along during the summer camp overnight, though I myself have never seen that list.