- Author: Susana C. Bruzzone-Miller
HAREC education season ended June 29th with a memorable 4-H Sustainable You! Summer Camp for ages 9-12. The week long camp, now in its fifth year, is fun, interactive and focuses on the environment. Each day centers on a theme: air, land, food, energy, water…..and shows youth how to reduce their footprint and preserve natural resources.
Environmental Educators, Angie Williams and Nick Shoemate from the City of Ventura Water and Environmental Sustainability Division did an amazing job sharing their knowledge and extending daily activities to 18 campers. This is our fourth year collaborating with the City. Teen Leader, Sara Centeno, Oxnard High School senior, helped engage youth in activities, games and enthusiastically took on the task of tracking and reporting on daily trash, recycling and composting waste.
Over 6800 youth participate in 4-H farm field trip, classroom outreach, after school and summer programs, as well as various community based STEM activities. The HAREC education staff appreciates the support of partners such as the City of Ventura and Ventura Unified School District as well as all the 4-H and Master Gardener volunteers that work so diligently throughout the year to make youth programs possible county-wide.
For highlights of Sustainable You! Summer Camp 2018 watch the video below:
- Author: Susana C. Bruzzone-Miller, RDN
The week has flown by. A special thanks to the youth and families that joined us this week, the City of Ventura for partnering with us, environmental educator, Jill Sarrick and intern, Shanti Sandosham for delivering a great program!
Sustainable You! Summer Camp wraps up with Water!
Day 5: Water
- Author: Susana C. Bruzzone-Miller
The first week-long 4-H Summer Camp at HAREC kicked off today. Day 1 went off without a hitch thanks to our intern, Chris Massa. A diverse group of youth-19 in all and ages 9-16 enjoyed a hands-on day at the farm. Sustainable You! Summer Camp, a program created by Utah State University, is designed to help youth understand what it means to be sustainable through fun activities based around the five major areas of sustainability: land, food, air, energy, and water.
Today's theme-Land inspired youth to:
- Author: Susana C. Bruzzone-Miller
Last week's much needed rain helped our field trip garden and rye maze double in size...just in time for today's spring education and outreach season kickoff. The garden isn't the only thing that's growing. Our education volunteer pool has also grown. Winter volunteer recruitment was very successful. We welcome six amazing new volunteers that have now completed the application, orientation and training process. They are ready to start working with students and we are excited to have them on board.
Dr. Roslynn Brain, Assistant Professor and Sustainable Communities Extension Specialist from Utah State University will be at the Center March 17-19. She will conduct a 3 day train the trainer workshop for her sustainability youth camp called Sustainable You.The program is geared grades 4-6. Our new intern, Chris Massa, will deliver the week-long camp at the Center summer 2014. The training is open to RECs, 4H and community partners. Contact sbmiller@ucanr.edu to attend.
Preparations are under way for May 8th UCCE-Ventura County: A Celebration of Science and Service. Self-guided activities...preschool to adult will be available throughout the day at HAREC. All participants will also be encouraged to participate in a state-wide research opportunity to collect data using the computer application developed by the Centennial committee. The central themes will be water, food, and pollinators. More details to follow, stay tuned.