Laurie Lewis, Early Career ESP Award Winner 2001

Laurie Lewis
State ESP Early Career Award

Hyde County is a very limited resource county. The county has a large percentage of children that are being raised in an environment that is below the poverty level. The school is under funded and science education outside of the classroom has been identified as a need. As a result of this need, and her background in the sciences, Laurie has worked to bring more science education into her county 4-H program. In the fall of 1999, she received a packet of information from WGBH in Boston, the television studio that produces the PBS series ZOOM!tm. The ZOOM!tm Outreach coordinator was looking for sites to pilot the new ClubZOOM! program. The purpose of the program is to create a club environment that would allow the youth to test the ideas and other fun stuff that has been submitted to ZOOM!tm by youth around the country. Participation in this pilot program was limited to Boys and Girls Clubs and 4-H programs. Laurie submitted an application to be a pilot site hoping to use this program as a way into some of the communities in the county that were not being served by traditional 4-H Clubs.

Shortly after Hurricane Floyd Laurie learned that Hyde County had been selected as one of the 20 pilot sites for the program. Of the 20 sites selected, only 6 were 4-H Club programs. In February of 2000, Laurie and Pinkie Mann, former 4-H Program Assistant, traveled to Boston, Massachusetts to attend the ClubZOOM! training. Upon returning from Massachusetts, Laurie and Pinkie began the pilot program for ClubZOOM!. Parents from the Ponzer community approached Laurie about being the hosts for the pilot program. Due to its location, this community normally feels isolated from Hyde County and typically receives services, including education, from the neighboring county.

Eighteen youth from the Ponzer Community met at the Ponzer Community Park building one night a week for six weeks. At each meeting, members reviewed the experiment that they conducted the week before. Following the discussion, the club member's viewed a brief video that introduced the next club challenge. Members then spend the next 30-45 minutes working on completing their challenge. When time was called, the groups discussed what did or did not work while discussing what scientific basis the experiment were based on. At the end of the meeting members received their special stickers for their name tags.

As a result of the success of this club program, Laurie decided to expand it to fit other needs of the county during the summer months. She conducted two, week-long day camps that centered around the ZOOM!tm series. The first day camp was for 5-8 year olds with another offered for 9-12 year olds. Members not only completed science activities, they also completed puzzles, played games, prepared recipes, and even sent their own ideas into ZOOM!tm. These additional activities were found on the WGBH web site and in books that were written by the producers of ZOOM!. The summer programs involved 43 youth between the two day camps over the past two summers.

This club format has even expanded to include a 4-H Club that met at the elementary school after school. This new club met twice a month. The first meeting is the meeting in which ZOOM!tm activities are completed and the second meeting promotes traditional 4-H programming. This 4-H Club involved 13 youth. This club is in the reorganization stage for the 2001-2002 school year.

Bookworm Corner 4-H Club: This is a 4 -H club for youth in grades K-2 that began meeting in September 2000. Members of this club are encouraged to increase their literacy by reading more books. The Bookworm Corner 4-H Club meets twice a month. The first meeting of the month utilizes the "Read Me A Story" curriculum. This curriculum has a volunteer reading club members a story. Upon completion of the story, members complete craft projects, play games, and test their knowledge of the story they have just read. The second meeting of the month follows the traditional 4-H Club meeting outline. Currently, there are ten youth actively involved with this club and several other youth that will become members when additional volunteers are secured. Interest in reading has increased among the members as noted by the increased number of books members' report reading during the month.

Livestock Show - Thirty-seven youth, ages 5-18, participated in the 2001 4-H Livestock Show and Sale. Of these fifty youth, 5 were first time show participants. There were 10 youth showing lambs and 27 youth showing hogs. Over recent years, Laurie has included weekly visits to the homes of the youth showing lambs. This visitation time allows Laurie the opportunity to provide one-on-one work with the participants to increase their competencies in the care and showing of lambs. Another addition Laurie has made to the Livestock Show is the use of computers and the Internet in the completion of project records for the show. The first year this project was introduced, Laurie created a list of web sites for youth ages 14-19 to visit. Members were to visit these sites and then answer questions on a series of worksheets Laurie had also prepared on the Internet. The second year this project was completed, a more comprehensive view of Agriculture was used to produce the web sites to be visited and worksheets were actually completed on the web and submitted via forms on the web pages. In 2001, Laurie again utilized the Internet for the 14-19 year old club member projects. The club members were required to complete a WebQuest about Agriculture that required them to search the Internet for information about agriculture that related to both Hyde County and North Carolina. After completing the research on the web, participants were required to complete a "marketing" poster to highlight the importance of agriculture in Hyde County and North Carolina. Quality of work completed by youth in this age group has increased over 100% since the implementation of the web based project. Livestock show participants earned over $19000.00 from the sale and slaughter of their show animals. In 2001, 30 parents were involved in the program volunteering almost 150 hours.

2001 ESP Awards

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