What's Up With "5-H 4-H"?

July 5-H4-H meeting
5-H4-H elections
Courney's Dale Carnegie experience
5-H4-H Music project
5-H4-H Mars Mission
Expo

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Dale Carnegie Course
by Courtney Rockenbach

I took the 4-H sponsored Dale Carnegie take charge 2002 course, and I think every teen should take it.
The course helps build confidence and public speaking skills, gives you ways to fight worry, become a leader, and is a great place to make friends. The instructors are beyond compare and it's a really safe environment for those of us who fell threatened by judgmental people. It was so awesome it was more than worth getting up at 4:30 on every Saturday for 12 weeks and driving for two hours. Really, if there is any way you can take this course you should. Remember that YOU GET WHAT YOU PUT IN, so go with an open mind, and you'll be surprised at how much fun you have.
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Courtney gave a talk to the Kalamazoo 4-H Leader's Council about her very positive experience with the Dale Carnegie course she took at MSU. The council voted some money to help reimburse Courtney and her mom for all their driving to Lansing each weekend! Talk to Courtney for more information about the course.

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Mars Mission The Mars Mission project led by Brenda Colvin was a big success! Jack, Courtney, Bailey, Maddison, Taylor, Allison, Hassan, James, Tyler and Garth, and PJ and others did a month of training, where they learned to solve problems by consensus (everyone agrees), figured out how much food they would need and space they would have for food and other items, designed a logo and named their ship, divided up into work teams and got experience in solving the kinds of problems Mars explorers might encounter. One project was thinking of the individual steps it would take to instruct a robot to set a place at the dinner table- and then giving another mission member the commands, to see if anything had been left out! Another was to decide when a 10 members needed fast transport back to the base, and there were only 7 places in the transport, who would be left behind? Another was to choose among a list of items those most essential for survival--the solution was from NASA. They also learned some navigation skills.
Then the group went to a realistic simulation at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum on April 30th, and spent the day either in Mission Control on Mars or in a shuttle that was coming from Earth. Messages were passed back and forth, samples were analyzed and tested for radioactivity and the data sent and checked, rock samples were tested. After the mission was completed there was a discussion with the Challenger Learning Center staff.

"The Kalamazoo Valley Museum's Challenger Learning Center is an innovative educational facility complete with a 21st century Space Station and Mission Control. Part of an international network, Challenger Learning Centers are founded in memory of the Challenger 51-L crew to carry on its educational mission." See more photos on our Mars Mission page.

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4-H Medieval Music The group has a number of songs down and is finishing up their costumes...and making up medevial personas to go with them! They will be playing their music at the Silver Leaf Renaissance Faire, the last three weekends in July; 13-14, 20-21; 27-28.

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Our homeschooler's 4-H club is the 5-H 4-H, a club of the Kalamazoo County 4-H (even though we don't all live in Kalamazoo County!) The fifth "H", of course, is homeschooling. We will write about our events and adventures and get ready for the Kalamazoo County Fair. Homeschooling 4-Hers, please send in an article!