Success StoryUpdating the 4-H Land Judging and Home Site Evaluation Publication and Contest



Updating the 4-H Land Judging and Home Site Evaluation Publication and Contest

Author: Edwin Ritchey

Planning Unit: Plant and Soil Sciences

Major Program: Water and Soil Quality and Conservation

Outcome: Intermediate Outcome

We revised the 4-H Land Judging publication in 2021 to better align with the current NRCS and Cooperative Extension recommendations. Minor edits were made again to keep the information as current as possible per recommendations. These new practices also better align with National Land Judging contest so the state winners that go to the National Contest are more familiar with the National Contest rules. We also added a Home Site Evaluation to the State contest for the urban students that might not be interested in agricultural land uses. The contestants and coaches at the 2022 and 2023 state contest were pleased with the changes. We completed a set of short YouTube videos to help provide instructors with tutorials to better educate their students how to be more successful in site evaluations. They can be found here (https://youtu.be/G0euc-PUdZ4; https://youtu.be/Rs7ua-f-ZEA; https://youtu.be/f_8MCno93PI). We are planning to use a scantron (bubble sheet) score card this year to speed the grading and reduce the chance for human error interpreting the students’ answers. This publication is used by both 4-H and FFA students across the state of Kentucky in preparation for the national contest. 






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