My Very Own Scientific Snowflake

Howdy 4-H Folks...

I thought I would show off my very own Scientific Snowflake!

I followed the directions from the website this morning and *poof* we have a snowflake this afternoon!

As a suggestion...you may want to use a vessel that you don't mind possibly disposing of after the project. My 4-H Club used Styrofoam cups yesterday, but I haven't heard how they turned out.

-Kim

A Very Merry 4-H Christmas

Not many of us conduct 4-H Clubs during the month of December due to the shortened month and the hustle and bustle taking place in the schools...BUT...in case you do...Have I got a project for you!

Scientific Snowflakes!

4-H'ers can create long-lasting, shimmering snowflakes using a simple chemical process. They supersaturate hot water with borax, lower a pipe cleaner snowflake shape into the liquid, and leave it suspended overnight. As the water cools, the borax forms into crystals upon the pipe cleaner. The next day, your 4-H'ers will return to discover their beautiful crystal snowflakes.

Detailed instructions and science content can be found at the eGFI website for teachers.

Enjoy & Merry Christmas!

4-H Club Officer and Youth Leader Training Resources

In working with 4-H Leaders in my Region, I have discovered that we are all in want of some fantastic officer training materials. I believe we have found just what we need through the Wisconsin 4-H Community Club Central website.

On this page, you will find detailed information and training suggestions for each 4-H Club Office, like:

• President


• Vice President


• Secretary


• Treasurer


• Reporter

In addition, there is a "Quick and Easy Guide to Parliamentary Procedure" and "Team Building Activities".

Perhaps, my favorite portion is an "Officer Training Challenge". It is a powerpoint based Jeopardy game that can be used in Officer Training or part of a 4-H Club meeting. It teaches the roles and responsibilities of officers that provide leadership to the 4-H Club.

Kids-N-Kash

Penn State University Cooperative Extension and Pennsylvania 4-H have developed the Kids-N-Kash 4-H Program. This is a four-issue program designed to develop the attitude, values, and skills that help make young people productive members of society.

Pennsylvania 4-H felt that because of widespread changes in American families, children have expanded their roles as consumers. Today's children have more money, more responsibility, and more influence on purchases than previous generations. There is a clear need for children to learn and use consumer and money skills.

The program materials include a leader's guide as well as four kid's issues to use in your programming; all of this information comes as a free pdf file that you can download and save.

The issues are as follows:

• Kids and Kash, issue 1
• Kids and Kash, issue 2
• Kids and Kash, issue 3
• Kids and Kash, issue 4
• Kids and Kash, Leader's Guide

Any of these programs would be a great addition to your in-school, special interest, or community club 4-H setting!

Need A Quick & Easy 4-H Lesson Plan?

Iowa 4-H Youth Development Specialists have created 4-H Lesson plans that correspond to various 4-H project curricula. Lesson plans were developed to assist Extension staff in marketing user-friendly 4-H project materials with out-of-school time/after-school personnel. Many of these lesson plans also correspond to the time-frame of an in-school 4-H Club Setting.

The lesson plans are divided based upon age ranges. There are lesson plans for K-3rd grades, 4-6th grades, and 7-8th grades with such subjects as:

4-H Afterschool Lesson Plans

Bugs
Cats
Child Development
Citizenship
Communication
Consumer Management
Dog
Food and Nutrition
Leadership
Pets
Photography
Sportfishing
Theatre Arts
Woodworking

To learn more or to access these plans, please click here.

Life in a Fishbowl

I will never forget my first 4-H PPT Meeting for several reasons. I would like to share one of them with you today... "Life in a Fishbowl"!

Auburn University's Sustainability Initiative, in cooperation with the City of Auburn, created this education program to raise awareness of watersheds in the state, within cities, and the problems they face from everyday activities we all engage in.

There are several activities that can be used with elementary youth, but in particular is "Life in a Fishbowl" that teaches the effect of pollution on wildlife.

For more information on Auburn's Sustainability Initiative, please click here. For the full "Life in a Fishbowl" Lesson plan, please click here.

4-H Community Clubs - Creating an Online Presence

The University of Wisconsin and Wisconsin 4-H are becoming tech savvy and are encouraging us to do so as well.

Wisconsin has developed an online database for 4-H Clubs and 4-H Leaders to use as a tool in order to create an online presence for your 4-H activities.

The database has links to various websites that include:

• How Blogs Work
• 7 things you should know about Blogs
• Wired Safety Blog Sites, Profile Sites, Diary Sites or Social-Networking Sites - addressing parental concerns
• Facebook: A Beginner's Guide

Also included are the weblinks for the 4-H Brand Network as well as free tools for creating your own 4-H webpage.

In this age of technology and the growing demand for more cost efficient ways to get our message across, how can we not take advantage of and utilize the internet in our 4-H programs?

For more information, please visit the Wisconsin 4-H website by clicking here.

Utah 4-H TRY program Smells Sweet!

TRY stands for Teens Reaching Youth. It is the newest leadership program sponsored by Utah 4-H. Youth do not have to be enrolled in 4-H to get involved. There are TRY Teams throughout the state & a team is made up of 2-4 teens and their adult coach. Youth learn to teach fun, hands-on programs for younger youth, selecting one of four project areas: Robotics, Lotions & Potions, Recharge Fun, Food & Fitness, or Science Polooza!

One of their best program is that of Lotions & Potions. You will learn how to make body lotion, lip balm, bath salts, and other wonderful spa products. These finished spa items also make GREAT gifts that both you and the youth you teach will enjoy giving. This program can be done as part of in-school, community club, after-school, and day camp programs. It is sure to be so much fun as well as educational! To learn more, please click here to find out more about Utah's TRY program as well as the Lotions & Potions curriculum!

Cornell University and New York State 4-H as developed the 4-H Science Toolkit. It is a collection of science activities - perfect for youth grades 3-6. The activities have been developed for afterschool, in-school, clubs and youth groups, camps and others wishing to explore science. Lessons are written to be be "grab and go" for any leader or teacher. Most can be taught with items found around the home and will take less than 1 1/2 hours to complete.

Although the series is still in draft form, once completed, the Toolkit will be made up of six stand alone activities for each topic. Activities have been contributed by 4-H educators and Cornell University staff.

Resources will continue to be added in coming months.

Free downloadable 4-H Science Toolkit Lesson Plans:

Animal Science (pdf) (NYS learning standards) Topics: Explore animal body temperatures and ways animals regulate their temperature, learn how animals protect themselves from disease and illness, learn to read behavioral signals from animals and discover why they behave the way they do in the wild, discover the basic parts of the respiratory system in animals and in humans and learn about respiration rates for different animals, experiment with various activities to help them understand how animals use their senses to survive, examine animal foods to find out what nutri-ents are important for animal health and for people.

Lost Ladybugs (pdf) (NYS learning standards) Topics: Insect life cycles and the food web, biological control of insect pests, biodiversity, building a sweep net, capturing, cataloguing and storing insects, submitting data to the Lost Ladybug Project

Entomology (pdf) (NYS learning standards) Activities: Explore the way spiders leave their nests, learn about some of the 80,000 different species of beetles and how to tell them from other insects, learn how yellow jackets and hornets create their nests full of combs, discover how to measure the quality of a stream by collecting and cataloguing the insects that live there, wander into the woods to find unusual growths on plants and learn what caused them and what might live inside.

Geospatial Science (pdf) (NYS learning standards) Activities:

Fabric/Flight (pdf) (NYS learning standards) Activities:

Astronomy (pdf) (NYS learning standards) Activities: Gaze at the night sky and learn to identify constellations and find out how ancient people used stars to chart the seasons and tell stories, discover how they can use the sun to tell time, experiment with light and objects to learn how solar and lunar eclipses happen, model the scale size and distance of planets and the sun, then, learn ways to remember the names of the planets in the correct order.

Climate in Your Backyard (pdf) (NYS learning standards) Activities:

Pepsi Refresh Grants

Pepsi is looking for people, businesses, and non-profits with ideas that will have a positive impact. Look around your community and think about how you want to change it.

Pepsi is accepting 1,000 ideas a month on topics dealing with: Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods, & Education.

• Submit idea: 2/1 to 2/15

  Applications will be accepted from the 1st through the 15th, or until we receive 1,000 ideas, whichever comes first.

• Voting starts: 3/1 to 3/31

  Voting on accepted submissions takes place throughout the month of March. If your idea was not accepted in February, you can try again March 1st.

• End of the month

  Ideas chosen by users to receive grants will be announced. Then the whole process starts over.

They're Awarding Grants of All Sizes

• ^$5k Up to 10 Awardees/Month Best for individuals who need to get an inspired idea off the ground.
• ^$25k Up to 10 Awardees/Month Best for individuals & small groups who can work lean and mean.
• ^$50k Up to 10 Awardees/Month Best for companies & organizations who can put time into it.
• ^$250k Up to 2 Awardees/Month Best for organizations who can dedicate a lot of time & resources.

For more information, please see: www.refresheverything.com

Animoto.com

Advertising Advantages

With today's technology, advertising your 4-H program can be difficult. Paper flyers work to a certain extent, but to really get the attention of today's youth one must use a multi-media presentation.

I would like to introduce you to animoto.com. It is an extremely user-friendly web-based slideshow production program. With animoto, you can produce professional quality slideshows to use in advertising your 4-H programs. Even if you are completely I.T. challenged, you can use animoto. You simply upload your photos and music, or use the music they provide and they do the rest!

You can create short, 30 second shows for free. For larger slideshows, you can pay either $3.00 per show or you can subscribe for $30.00 per year. It is a great value for the quality you receive.

I have enclosed a recent production I created for the Butler County Chef 4-H Club. Enjoy!

The Power of 11 Cents

Here is a simple project, from Missouri 4-H, that doesn’t take a lot of time or money but benefits the men and women serving our country.

The Power of 11 Cents started with a young boy named Abraham. Abraham was just three and his parents had already been deployed numerous times. His grandmother, Pat, worked to help injured soldiers and their families. One day, Abraham was playing around with some change and Pat told him he needed to put it away. He said “No grandma, give it to your soldiers.” And the Power of 11 Cents was born.

This could be a great service learning project for your club or organization! All you need to do is challenge your members to bring 11¢ or more to contribute to the military who are suffering a loss or an injury.

Contact Charlene Hines for more information on Veteran's Hospitals and OMK projects in the State of Alabama!