Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Citizenship Washington Focus: Presidential Inauguration 2021 experience was cancelled. Hosted by the National 4-H Center, approximately 68 youth from central Kentucky were planning on attending. In addition to the trip itself, the Kentucky planning committee, made up of agents from around Central Kentucky, had scheduled several civic educational days to be used to supplement the participants’ knowledge of the election and electoral process. In response to the cancellation, those registered participants were polled on their interest in continuing the civic educational days. Based on the 4-H’ers responses, a team of seven Kentucky 4-H Agents planned the 2020 4-H Election Day Extravaganza. The purpose of this event was to:

1. Provide an educational experience for youth who had planned on attending the inauguration event,
2. Engage youth in a safe conversation about politics, the election and government and,
3. Facilitate civic education on such topics as the electoral college, absentee voting and other topical content. 

The target audience for this event was limited to those participants who were registered for the previously cancelled Inauguration event. Of those polled, 12 participants elected to participate in the program. The program itself consisted of two 1-hour virtual meetings hosted on the Zoom software. The first session took place at 1:30pm ET on Election Day, November 3^rd, 2020 and the second session took place at 7:00pm ET that evening. During the first session, participants spent time learning about a variety of topics applicable to the election. Those topics included the primaries, the party system, ballots, the electoral college, different types of vote-casting and how elections are contested. These topics were covered through both content-driven presentations led by county 4-H agents as well as interactive activities. The first session wrapped up with homework; participants were tasked with recording news headlines at 5pm, 5:30pm, 6pm and 6:30pm that evening from four different news sources, with at least one local source and national source. Those headlines were utilized during the second session, as participants discussed what headlines they saw, any trends between sources and any biases that existed. The sessions wrapped up with a brief discussion of the presidential election and what to look for, both in the coming days but also the coming weeks and months. 

Participants completed a pre-test evaluation prior to the start of the first session and a post-test evaluation upon completion of the second session in the evening. Based on a comparison of the pre-test and post-test responses, after participation in the event participants on average:

1. felt more comfortable discussing the election with other people
2. better understood how the Electoral College works 
3. better knew the difference between absentee, in-person, and mail-in voting
4. could better identify different types of media sources
5. felt more comfortable disagreeing with someone in a respectful manner
6. and expressed they enjoyed learning about political topics.

In addition, participants recorded an increased political awareness, and were more likely to report that 4-H provides a safe and educational opportunity to learn about our political system. 

The 2020 4-H Election Extravaganza served to provide an opportunity for youth to gather, learn and dialogue about politics, the election, and the state of our current political system. Given the current polarization of our political climate, facilitating education and conversation amongst youth is key to developing a generation that sees itself as a part of the solution and ready for the task of embracing leadership roles.