4-H plows ahead with science focus

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By Andrea Billups

Once a national youth group associated with cows and plows, today's 4-H aims to cultivate a renewed interest in technology and science education.

Citing studies that show American students lagging behind their foreign counterparts in math and science, 4-H leaders across the nation are focusing on after-school projects that get children excited about these subjects in a hands-on way.

The goal: to offset a work-force shortage of scientists and engineers by helping prepare 1 million youngsters to excel in science and technology by 2013.

"We want to be right there around one of the most serious issues this country faces - getting young people into sciences," said Donald Floyd, CEO of 4-H, which will hold its National Youth Science Day on Wednesday.

"Four-H has been a player in science issues for over 100 years, but we are changing and adapting to the times and needs of the community and national interest," he said.

"We see in other nations around the world that really train so many new scientists, and we here in the United States hire a lot of them," he said. "It would be great if we had a lot more scientists in our own right, so we want to make sure we can spark that imagination in a young person that science is really cool."

While many have an image of 4-H Club members raising livestock for county fairs, which is still common in certain places, the group has moved steadily beyond its agricultural roots into urban areas for years.

"In rural America, we still have a very strong presence in those communities, but we also do multiple levels of programming, and we want to have an equal footprint: rural, urban and suburban," said Mr. Floyd, who explained that his organization's ability to teach subjects like science comes from ties with the nation's land-grant universities.

In Oregon, for example, 42 percent of the state's Hispanic youths are involved in 4-H programs. One of the most successful is Tech Wizards, by which students in after-school programs commit 50 hours a year to study and 15 hours to a service project - all geared not only to teaching them science, but also keeping them in school.

Recent efforts include learning how to use software, spatial data, cartography and quality-assurance programs to map the safest routes for students to walk to local schools.