Author: Patrick Allen
Planning Unit: 4-H Central Operations
Major Program: Camping
Plan of Work: Environmental Education
Outcome: Initial Outcome
For eight years now I have worked to increase the Scott County public school's 4th grade attendance to Environmental Education Camp (EE camp). We went from having only three schools attending to having all nine participating in the program. These nine were divided between the Fall and Spring seasonal programs. The program was designed to help youth increase knowledge in several facets of the environment. These areas included; wildlife studies, Micro invertebrates, aquatic life, mammal studies, birds of pray, ecosystems, and soil studies. The over all goal for this program is to get youth interested in the environment/ outdoors so that maybe one day the will become advocates for natural areas and their environment. In 2020 we were forced to cancel all the overnight environmental camping groups in Scott county due to COVID-19. In 2021 the school systems were unsure of allowing overnights as well as field trips in general because of the continued risk COVID-10 presented. I was still abele to continue the program with one Homeschool Coop group (Classical Conversations) in Spring of 2021. I decided to be proactive and have continuous communication with the 4th grade teachers as well as develop an overnight option for the Spring of 2022. The schools approved the idea with their administration team and we were able to hold the program as a Day Camp version. The schools allowed the schedule to extend to after school hours so that the students could be at camp longer. This gave the students the opportunity to take four classes and have dinner at camp. We partnered with the Kentucky Reptile Zoo and had them give a one hour presentation for all the students on their specific day of camp. After completing all eight sessions of camp with the schools the teachers shared positive comments of the schedule and program as a whole. Teachers were happy that we were able to have the option of a day camp for their students as the students were excited to finally attend field trips again. After having such a positive outcome with the modified program, we will be offering this version of EE camp again in the future. Ultimately, there was a fear that schools would not have the continued interest in participating in the program after 2020 and 2021 cancellations but we are happy to say that with this modification we will continue to have all schools involved in 2023.
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