Focus on 4-H for Feb. 16 Edition

By Tyler Painter

4-H Extension Agent

 

The Botetourt County 4-H Program has kicked off the New Year with a packed slate of school programs and community club activities and events. We are excited about the next several months and wanted to share what’s been going on.

For January, we continued with our monthly school programs for fourth and fifth grade students that included programs on introductions to how-to presentations, living systems, and force and motion. The fourth grade program on living systems focused on food chains, producers/consumers, herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. The project allowed students to be assigned a card that designated them as a producer or a consumer. We then weaved a food web with yarn to illustrate how food processes work throughout an ecosystem, as illustrated in the attached photo. Students at Buchanan Elementary School are preparing their how-to presentations to be judged at their monthly meeting in February.

The fifth grade programs on force and motion allowed the students to build and test catapults that they designed with a specific set of materials and launch miniature marshmallows to see which design would launch a marshmallow the furthest distance. With this, we spoke about the different types of energy, force, motion, load, and other concepts.

Our community club members and volunteers have been busy with their monthly meetings, as well as planning for the upcoming 4-H and FFA Showcase at Lord Botetourt High School on Friday, Feb. 18 from 5-7 p.m. In addition to the 4-H and FFA exhibits that will be on hand, we will also be hosting our 4-H Share the Fun Talent Show, which will begin in the auditorium at 6:30 p.m. Currently, we have over 10 acts that have auditioned and have been invited to participate in the show. We are excited to be able to once again offer this program in person, as we have not been able to do so since 2019. This entire event will be free to the public and we hope that you will come out and support the youth of Botetourt County.

Our Junior 4-H Camp is set for June 13-17 and we will begin advertising and accepting registrations for that in the coming weeks. We plan to deliver our camp brochures to each school, as well as have that information available on our website and social media pages as well.

If you have any questions about how you can get involved with the Botetourt County 4-H Program as a member or a volunteer, please contact Tyler Painter, 4-H Extension Agent at 473-8260.