Kentucky 4-H believes that all youth should have opportunities for positive youth development in our four guiding concepts: mastery, belonging, independence, and generosity. Grayson County 4-H provided opportunity in this recently during Spring Break by offering 4-H Rocketry Day Camp to youth of the county. By working with state specialist for SET (Science, Engineering, and Technology), the agent was able to provide educational activities for Mastery by encouraging youth to develop skills related to the aerospace industry such as rocket design; Belonging by learning to work as a team to design, build and fly rockets; Independence by helping develop problem solving and critical thinking skills; and Generosity by allowing youth to help others develop their own skills related to the aerospace industry.

During the day camp, the 25 youth, ages 7-15,  in attendance were taught the concepts that engineers must think about when building rockets, how they work and they designed and built three rockets to launch; straw rockets, paper rockets, and black powder rockets. Through the design processes the specialist worked with the youth to think about thrust and angle for the launching of the rockets. At the conclusion of the day, the youth had six hours of SET education in aerospace and were evaluated and assessed on what they learned from the program.

100% could identify the four parts of the rocket as nose cone, body, fins, and engine.

100% learned a knowledge or a skill that they could use outside of the day camp.

96% enjoy SET activities.

96% listened to their instructors well.

96% listened and worked well with their peers.

88% of the youth knew that Force was applied to make rockets fly.

88% built confidence during the program

88% enjoy aerospace/rocketry activities and would like to do more with them.

84% helped another participant in the program.