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4-H Unveils Online Ag Learning System at Generation: Ag Summit
--Submitted by Pat BoyEs
Newly Sworn-in USDA Chief Scientist Provides Keynote Address
CHEVY CHASE, MD— (June 26, 2009) Two weeks ago, more than 150 of the nation's leaders in the field of agriculture gathered in St. Louis to discuss the challenges and opportunities involved in developing America's future ag industry workforce. The Generation: Ag Summit, hosted jointly by National 4-H Council, DuPont and Monsanto, brought together the top minds in agribusiness and higher education to accelerate partnerships and pose solutions to drive young people to pursue college degrees and professional opportunities in the agricultural sciences.
In response to the nation's ag workforce development dilemma, 4-H is crafting a new customizable, online learning system called Project Pathways. Created to spark early youth interest in the ag sciences, Project Pathways will feature a wide variety of hands-on topics and activities from genetic engineering, agro-robotics and sustainable agriculture to product marketing, plant science, animal science and ag communications. An exciting new part of 4-H's existing research-based, Ag Science programming, Project Pathways, will be developed by the scientists and educators within America's unique land-grant university system.
“With over a century of experience in sparking youth interest in science, 4-H is strategically positioned to help agribusiness address workforce development issues by engaging the six million youth who actively participate in 4-H, “said Donald T. Floyd, Jr., National 4-H Council president and CEO. “Inventive 4-H out-of-school programming like Project Pathways will allow youth to be exposed to and engage in the sciences earlier, which has been shown to motivate youth to pursue a career in the sciences as adults.”
“Project Pathways will be designed to accommodate, inspire and empower a wide variety of learners,” said Dr. Bob Horton, Professor of Educational Design at The Ohio State University, and chief architect of the Project Pathways initiative. “This is the first time that the efforts of industry, academia and youth development are combining to create a robust curriculum that blends the latest interactive online programming with offline hands-on work alongside passionate expert mentors.”
In addition to the excitement generated by the launch of Project Pathways, attendees of the Generation: Ag Summit were treated to the very first public remarks of Dr. Rajiv Shah, Under Secretary of Research, Education and Economics (REE) and Chief Scientist at the US Department of Agriculture, who provided the keynote address. Dr. Shah spoke about the importance of science to the future of America's food and agriculture system, and the critical role that 4-H is playing in attracting a new generation of young innovators to the industry.
“Science education is a vitally important priority for our nation,” said Rajiv J. Shah, M.D., Under Secretary of Research, Education and Economics (REE) and Chief Scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “I applaud 4-H for its work to develop the next generation of agriculturally literate youth who will go on to become our country's future innovative scientific minds.”
The Generation: Ag Summit took place on June 10th at the Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
About 4-H:
4-H is a community of six million young people across America learning leadership, citizenship, and life skills. National 4-H Council is the private sector, non-profit partner of National 4-H Headquarters (USDA). The 4-H programs are implemented by the 106 Land Grant Universities and the Cooperative Extension System through their 3,100 local Extension offices across the country. Learn more about 4-H at www.4-h.org.
Project Pathways is part of 4-H's One Million New Scientists. One Million New Ideas.TM campaign, with a bold goal of attracting one million new youth to science, engineering and technology programs by the year 2013.
To request an interview about Project Pathways contact: Kristin Walter at 301-961-2973 or via email at kwalter@fourhcouncil.edu
For information about 4-H Ag program sponsorship or to request a copy of the program brochure contact: Roger Olson at 715-386-9361 or via email at rolson@4-h.org.
National 4-H Council Update
--Submitted by Pat BoyEs
National 4-H Council's Board of Trustees is sharing some of their accomplishments for Fiscal Year 2009. As 4-H Council ends its year on June 30, they like the rest of us have experienced some challenges as well as victories.
I am pleased to report that Council teams delivered considerable value over the last twelve months, and we remain optimistic about new strategies that will continue to advance the 4-H movement.
But, it is no secret that we are all managing through tough financial times which have created significant hardships. Council has not been immune to these challenges, and we have taken a number of steps to ensure our financial health. Our focus is on maintaining operations at breakeven, cash management and asset recovery.
Despite the economic challenges, we remain in a very strong position, and have a lot of positives to look back at.
- We significantly enhanced our fundraising pipeline—establishing relationships with new partners and developing new excitement for 4-H with events like the Ag Science summit.
- ACCESS 4-H rollout began this year, and online enrollment continues to be a top organizational priority in order to ensure that 4-H programs throughout the country have a reliable and cost effective way to securely and accurately manage data.
- To support the success of the 4-H SET mission mandate, we launched the first 4-H National Youth Science Day and developed new PSA's—and we're about to release plans and materials for year two in just a few days.
- 4-H National Youth Conference Center celebrated its 50th Anniversary of service to youth development—and continues to perform well, despite economic pressures.
We are all excited about the progress that we have made together. Our partnership with the 4-H system has never been stronger, never been more filled with purpose and promise. Thanks for all you do to make that happen.
Job Opportunity
--Submitted by Pat BoyEs
4-H Program Associate in Trenton, NJ (Mercer County, NJ).
Just a Reminder!
When you have new Extension staff that will be working in some capacity with 4-H, please let Nancy in the State 4-H Office know. They will be added to mailing lists, added to the 4-H Talk list serve, sent a 4-H Welcome Packet, and be assigned a state 4-H staff person as a point of contact, as appropriate. 4-H News is sent via the 4-H Talk list serve each week. Archived copies of previous weeks “Tuesday 4-H News” are available on the 4-H web site: http://4h.wsu.edu/. Please send submissions by Friday of each week to Tiffany Boswell, State 4-H Office, tiffany_boswell@wsu.edu. Detailed event information and registrations forms can be found on the 4-H web site.