Background:
4-H Youth Development is the youth education program of the Cooperative Extension System. This informal educational program is conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state land-grant universities, and local government and combines the work of federal, state and local extension staff and volunteer leaders. Participants are primarily between the ages of 9 and 19 and reside in every demographic area: farm, city, and in between. The main purpose of 4-H is to assist youth in acquiring knowledge, developing life skills, and forming attitudes that will enable them to become self-directing, productive and contributing members of society. This activities are carried out through the involvement of parents, volunteer leaders and other adults who organize and conduct educational subject/project experiences in community and family settings. These youth contribute to energy conservation environment improvement, community service and food production, and participate in programs that aid youth employment and career decisions, health, nutrition, home improvement, and family relationships. In the process, 4-H youth apply leadership skills, acquire a positive self-concept and learn to respect and get along with people.
Problem:
The frequency of actual educators incorporating the life skills curriculum into the classroom is fair to none. 4-H Youth Development lessons involve hands-on activities which concentrate on given life skills. Students who participate in the life skill workshops have to complete a pre-post evaluation after each presentation.
It’s estimated that 25% of our nation’s youth engage in “high-risk” activities such as heavy alcohol, tobacco, or drug use, delinquency, and poor school performance or non-attendance. Almost one-third of our youth fail to graduate from high school. As a result of these high-risk activities, youth become a burden to society instead of contributions. The number of our nation’s youth exhibiting at-risk behavior points to a lack of skills necessary for adulthood-skills in working with others, understand self, communicating, making decisions, and leadership. The development of life skills allows youth to cope with their environment by making responsible decision, have a better understand of their values, and being better able to communicate and get along with others.
