4-H In School
Alachua County 4-H offers multiple in-school programs. Find out why your classroom should incorporate 4-H In School programming and check out our offerings below!
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Benefits of 4-H In School Programming
4-H is America’s largest youth development organization. Through 4-H, youth are put on a trajectory to thrive through experiential learning in a strong developmental context. The 4-H Thriving Model is the theory of change for positive youth development in 4-H. High quality 4-H program settings provide youth a place to belong, matter and explore their personal spark. High quality settings foster developmental relationships with youth, relationships that express care, challenge growth, and share power. These components help ensure that 4-H programs provide a nourishing developmental context – a place where youth can belong and grow.
Current research points to the advantage of authentic instruction that involves “active knowledge construction” by learners, relevance, active feedback on learner progress, ongoing opportunities to rethink and reflect, and highly interactive learning activities (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). For decades, 4-H Youth Development has been using active knowledge construction processes through a process called experiential learning.
WHY USE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING?
- Multiple senses can increase retention.
- Multiple teaching methods can be integrated to maximize creativity.
- Child-centered learning becomes the focus.
- Discovery of knowledge and solutions builds competence and confidence.
- Students can learn life skills that will be used, in addition to subject matter content.
- Learning is more fun!
4-H Youth Development relies heavily upon the five steps of the experiential learning model to teach life skills. The sequential steps of the model help students identify what they have learned from a 4-H experience or activity and to apply that learning to other experiences or situations. This model requires that the “teacher/leader” be very clear about the skill or concept targeted and that the experience and the processing questions are designed to support that learner goal. The experiential learning process engages the learners in all phases of the activity, resulting in the ability to generalize this learning to new situations.
Programs Offered
The Alachua County Program Coordinator works with teachers to offer a multitude of in-classroom programs to support learning. Reach out to Jesse Price at jprice@alachuacounty.us to learn more about any of these programs, or check out the information below. To sign up for any of these programs to be offered in your classroom, visit this registration link.
4-H In School Programming Details and Standards
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Embryology
4-H Embryology provides teachers with the opportunity to hatch chicks in their classrooms! We provide equipment and a curriculum to guide your class through the 21-day hatching process. This is an immersive project that can cover nearly every subject!
Time Needed: 1 month
Target Audience: Grades 2-4
Educational Standards: Multiple across subjects
Availability: Spring
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School Gardens
Is your school interested in creating a school garden? Does your school already have one that needs a little help? Looking for activities to do in a garden or other natural area? Work with the Florida Master Gardener volunteers to make your garden a great place to work, grow, teach, learn, read, and relax
Time Needed: Varies. In class or after school
Target Audience: All grade levels
Educational Standards: Multiple across subjects
Availability: Year-round
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Ag Literacy Day
Florida Ag In the Classroom sponsors Ag Literacy Day each year and provides a new book about Florida's agriculture industry for schools. Alachua County 4-H typically organizes volunteers to read in elementary classrooms throughout the county. A signup goes out to teachers to select a date and time slot for 4-H volunteers (often times our great teen leaders) to come to all of the classrooms of that grade level to read the book, answer questions from the students, and bring materials that typically include a copy of the book for each class and bookmarks and stickers for each student. FAITC also provides many additional resources for teachers on their website.
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Public Speaking
We make public speaking easy by hosting classroom and school speech contests for your students. There is an introductory classroom workshop, then students write a speech on a topic of their choice to be delivered at the classroom contest. Participants are invited to compete at the county-level contest in the spring. This program is sponsored by Florida Power and Light.
Time Needed: 1 hour introductory workshop; 1 day classroom contest
Target Audience: Grades 4-6
Educational Standards: ELA.4/5/6.C.1, ELA.4/5/6.C.2, ELA.4/5/6.C.3, ELA.4/5/6.C.4, ELA.4/5/6.C.5, HE.4/5/6.R.2, HE.4/5/6.R.4
Availability: Fall
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All About Snakes
Get ready to slither into the fascinating world of snakes! From diverse species and cool adaptations to conservation efforts and staying safe. Discover the snakes commonly found in your area and learn how to identify them. Plus, enjoy coloring sheets and a Love Letter activity to show your appreciation for these scaly creatures!
Time Needed: 30-120 min, or multiple days in class
Target Audience: All Grade Levels
Educational Standards: SC.K-912.L.14-19
Availability: Year-round
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Enviroscape
Do you know where your drinking water comes from? With this interactive landscape model, your class will get hands-on experience learning about how different types of pollution on land can affect the aquifer, the source of our drinking water!
Time Needed: 30 min
Target Audience: All Grade Levels
Educational Standards: SC.4.E.6.2-3,6, SC.5.E.7.1-2, SC.6.E.6.1-2, SC.6.E.7.4, SC.7.E.6.6, SC.912.E.7.3, SC.6.N.1.4, SC.7.N.1.5, SC.8.N.4.1, SC.8.N.1.2, SC.8.N.1.4, ELA.K12.EE.1.1, ELA.K12.EE.1.1
Availability: Year-round
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Improv! For Real Life
One of the most common fears in the U.S. is public speaking. Youth will have the opportunity to learn about Improv and how it can be used in everyday life. We will play different games and exercises to help build improv skills, which may surprise you as being several 4-H Life Skills as well. This program works well in conjunction with Public Speaking or as a standalone program.
Time Needed: 1-2 hours
Target Audience: Upper Middle-High School
Educational Standards: TH.68-912.C/S/O/H/F.1-4.1-8
Availability: Year-round, works well in conjunction with or as an intro to Public Speaking
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Evolution
Learn about how different organisms have developed and changed over millions of years through evolution. Activities include: reading books, Coloring and activity pages, online activities, Animal Classification Activity, Mars Chocolate Phylogenetic Tree Activity, and more!
Time Needed: 30-60 minutes
Target Audience: K-12
Educational Standards: SC.K-912.L.14-19.1-8, SC.K-912.N.1-4.1-7
Availability: Year-round
Coming Soon!
We are constantly adding new program offerings! If you are interested in these for your classroom, reach out to Jesse Price at jprice@alachuacounty.us to learn more about any of these programs.
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Crime Scene Kitchen
Your students can learn about science, food safety, and more with this interactive kitchen crime scene activity!
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Entomology
We help your students learn about insects and even how to start their own collections!
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Marshmallow Tower Challenge
Your students can learn about teamwork with this fun and engaging engineering challenge!