4-H
is not just about agriculture anymore: 43 4-Hers, plus adult volunteers,
visited Washington, D.C., last fall
(College Station)—Throughout its nearly 100 years in Texas, 4-H has worked to reach all Texas youth wherever they live—and still does.
In 1908 Tom Marks, Extension agent in Jack County, founded the first “corn club” for boys, which was followed a few years later by “pig clubs” and “beef calf clubs” in Coleman County (1910), and “tomato clubs” for girls in Milam County (1912).
But times change and so does 4-H. From its original 25 members in 1908, the statewide organization now touches the lives of more than a million young Texans each year, and the numbers are expected to grow.
4-H now touches the lives of more than a million young Texans each year.
Although Texas 4-H still has roots that go deep into agriculture and in rural areas of the state, for the last 25 years or so its programs have been branching out into all urban settings.
Martha Couch, Texas Cooperative Extension associate director for 4-H and youth, and Toby Lepley, associate professor and Extension 4-H and youth development specialist, said many of these new urban programs are conducted through partnerships with school systems because 4-H goes where kids go, and kids are in school.
They are also in urban areas—about 60 percent of the young participants in 4-H programs live in urban areas, Couch said.
Some of these programs are designed to teach city kids about agriculture, Dr. Couch said. For example, 4-H in Tarrant County offers a program called “100 Horses in 100 Schools,” which was designed to teach young city dwellers about horses and how important they are to the state’s agriculture and economy.
Other agriculture literacy programs in urban areas help kids from urban areas learn where their food comes from, Couch said. For the past 10 years or so about 300,000 youngsters have participated in these programs, which are sometimes called Pizza Ranch, Burger Farm, Kids and Kows, and AgVenture.
“The whole effort is to make them aware of agriculture and its importance to the state,” she said, adding that surprisingly enough, some of these kids didn’t realize French fries came from potatoes. “They thought French fries came from McDonald’s!”
Another program that helps teach urban kids about food and nutrition, but with a more hands-on approach, is Junior Master Gardeners. This program, which first began in a partnership with Our Lady of the Lake private school in Bexar County, has grown so much that now a quarter of a million youngsters participate all over the state each year.
Not only do these budding gardeners learn about plants from actually growing them, Dr. Couch said, but “some research shows their test scores improve; research also shows they are more likely to eat vegetables if they are involved in growing a garden.”
In
4-H, one slogan is "learn by doing."
Other urban 4-H programs get kids’ hands out of the dirt and their heads into the cosmos. Through a partnership with NASA’s education division, Texas 4-H has a program that lets kids reach for the stars by teaching them about rocketry and space flight, Dr. Couch said.
For learning technology that’s a little more down to earth, Texas 4-H’ers can join a GPS/GIS learning program, Dr. Lepley said. That stands for Global Positioning Satellite/Geographic Information System, he added. Four counties—Denton, Bexar, Galveston and Dallas—offer this program through 4-H.
A hand-held GPS device tells users exactly where they stand by longitude and by latitude. That information is then fed to a computer system that produces maps of the area measured.
“In Denton County, the kids collaborated with Texas Parks and Wildlife—they have mapped out the trails for a new park,” Dr. Lepley said.
“The career possibilities are unlimited,” he said. “These kinds of careers are really going to explode in the next couple of years.”
In fact, he added, some of the participating 4-Hers have already been hired by a local real estate agent to map out some of the houses listed for sale. Those “maps” are then translated into online home tours for prospective buyers.
In many counties, 4-H offers after-school programs, including:
Texas 4-H also teaches about leadership and citizenship, Dr. Couch said. One program in Harris County—which is home to about 30 members of the Texas Legislature—links one 4-H’er with each local legislator for some lessons on how state government works.
And this past Thanksgiving, 4-H officials and adult volunteers took 43 Texas 4-Hers on a visit to Washington, D.C. The young participants were winners of the state recordbook contest in their projects, Lepley said. At the nation’s capital, they visited their representatives’ offices and learned about national government.
“These are the top 43 kids out of about 6,000 recordbooks,” he said, adding that being chosen to go on the trip is a great honor.
“About 25 percent of this year’s winners were from urban counties,” Lepley said. “Our urban youngsters are very strong 4-H members. Kids in urban traditional 4-H programs adjust as to what they have the opportunity to do and the space they have to do it in.”
For example, instead of raising a cow, an urban 4-Her may choose to raise a rabbit.
Because so many Texans live in urban areas now and because the world is filled with so much diversity, 4-H is adjusting to meet demand.
“4-H has adapted itself to meet the changes in society,” Lepley said. Although agriculture was its original focus, 4-H now also offers such programs as community service and consumer issues, he said.
In 4-H, he said, one slogan is “Learn by doing.” And that’s what Texas 4-H and Texas 4-Hers have been doing for nearly 100 years.