Boyle County 4-H has a long tradition of working with local schools to provide educational content to students while sharing the breadth of extracurricular 4-H offerings available to them using an in-class club format.  Local 4-H leaders strongly support the efforts of professional 4-H staff in classroom settings as these linkages provide the best marketing opportunity of other 4-H offerings to early 4-H age youth.  Teachers and schools welcome the 4-H program into their classrooms because “lessons” are provided as part of club content that are consistent with the Kentucky Department of Education’s Core Content for Assessment.  Cooperative Extension Service personnel, in cooperation with local teachers, created 30 classroom clubs in the 18-19 school year in the Danville, Boyle County, and Danville Christian systems.  CES provided educators, curricula, core content checklists, and materials for seven monthly meetings for each club, six of which featured a Core Content lesson.  Lessons were offered in the areas of natural resources (4^th grade) and citizenship (5^th grade) as chosen by teachers. All clubs elected officers using the democratic process, all candidates presented speeches before the class, and elected officers conducted the meetings using formal business meeting structure throughout the year.  

In an end-of-the-year evaluation covering Leadership-related material:

87% of 5^th graders could explain the core principals of a democratic election.

89% of 5^th graders could describe the roles of various officers in an organization.

88% of 5^th graders used information learned in their 4-H club meetings to help them make decisions.

84% of 5^th graders used skills learned in their 4-H club meetings at home, school, or in the community.

Highlights of the end-of-year content evaluations for Natural Resources include:

92% could correctly describe movement through the 3 states of matter in the water cycle.

88% could explain how a seed germinates.

89% correctly identified animals that undergo metamorphosis.

92% participated in a community service project related to natural resources during the year.

93% used information learned in their 4-H club meetings to help them make decisions.

In both grades, 95% of youth stated they felt connected to 4-H staff as adults who were interested in them and their success in life.

All teachers responding to an end-of-year informal survey stated the best parts of the in-class club program this year were the hands-on, engaging activities that addressed core content.