West Virginia University Extension Service’s 4-H agents hope that Legos, those brightly colored building blocks from childhood, can help build science and engineering foundations for children in their counties.

A $1,000 grant from the JCPenney Afterschool Fund will help agents in Harrison, Marion, Monongalia, Preston and Upshur counties create a team to compete in the West Virginia First Lego League Competition.

The grant will allow the five participating counties to recruit 10 4-H’ers (two per county) who have an interest in science, technology or engineering. Additionally, one adult volunteer from each county will attend the training sessions.

According to Brent Clark, WVU Extension’s Harrison County 4-H agent, the overall goal is for the volunteers to learn the process so that they can help form individual county teams in the coming years.

“I love the concept of having a regional team that has the potential to spawn several new county-based teams in the future,” Clark said. “Participants can learn more about science, engineering, technology and each other, while feeling like they belong to a 4-H team or group.”

Teams of youths, ages 9 to 14, will compete in the daylong competition on Dec. 19 at Wheeling Jesuit University.

Team members will research and build Lego robotics that involve a transportation theme. The team will research transportation issues in the state and their communities and present their research to the judges during the competition.

For more than a century, 4-H has focused on agricultural science, electricity, mechanics, entrepreneurship and natural sciences. Today, 4-H out-of-school opportunities also exist in subjects like rocketry, robotics, bio-fuels, renewable energy and computer science.

To learn more about new opportunities in the 4-H program, visit www.ext.wvu.edu or contact your local WVU Extension Service.
—WVU—
9/17/09

CONTACT:
Ann Bailey Berry
Associate Director, WVU Extension
304-216-3938; ann.berry@mail.wvu.edu