Tech Wizards Explore Motion and More

Tech Wizards Fall 2015 Mike Judkins with edits by Rose Garritano JFK Elementary School Tech Wizards started to meet regularly again with the start of the school year and began investigating the energy of motion. Activities included bouncing and rolling ball experiments to explore potential energy, kinetic energy and friction, as well as desk top […]

Tech Wizards Videography Program

Members of the Winooski Elementary School Tech Wizards group explored videography this spring. Specifically targeted life skills include communication and critical thinking. Mentees often worked in pairs, interacting with the mentors as they check in with them, and reported out to the whole group as they reflected on what they have been doing. Mentors observed […]

4-H Tech Wizards Learn STEM Skills as Architects and Engineers

There are always opportunities for learning life skills at the Kurn Hattin Homes (Westminster, VT) Tech Wizards site. Mr. Fontaine’s science classes recently executed an extensive ornithology project from start to finish, developing new life skills along the way. In the first stage of the project, using their iPads, the student citizen scientists learned that […]

Tech Wizards Generate Potential Solutions to Help Farmers

Part of Tech Wizards programming includes doing a community service project, which we integrated into OMK’s July 2014 camp. 4-H Educator Rose Garritano connected us to another UVM Extension employee, Ben Waterman, who has been working on a solar powered water pump. This paired well with our work building solar powered cars! Ben,  in his […]

Experimenting with Paper Bridges

Holding an afterschool program at Winooski Elementary school exceeded my expectations. With the combination of an awesome group of students and wonderful mentors, I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to spend my Tuesday afternoons with. My name is Alyson Wall and I was the lead facilitator for this program, and also […]

Becoming Citizen Scientists

At the Kurn Hattin School, sawdust is flying everywhere. In February, this VT 4-H programming partner received 10 Apple iPads to start the 3rd year of their participation in UVM Extension’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) funded grant, 4-H Tech Wizards. In an earlier Tech Wizards experience, the students constructed models of […]

Takng Better Pictures

With the technology of digital cameras many youth and adults now enjoy photography as a hobby.  Many of today’s youth do not remember taking pictures with film and then having rolls of undeveloped film in a kitchen drawer or sending a roll in to have it developed only to realize then you paid for the […]

4-H Tech Wizards Map Invasives

Some species of plants pose a serious threat to ecosystems across the globe. Sometimes, when a nonnative species is introduced to a new area, it is able to grow in the unfamiliar environment. When this happens, it often begins to reproduce rapidly, vivaciously consuming tremendous amounts of resources, as they have no natural predators in […]

Learning About Flight…Together!

Last April, one of our amazing mentors (who also happened to be an AmeriCorps member serving with Operation: Military Kids Vermont for the year) put together our “Taking Flight” vacation camp in South Burlington, Vermont. Over the course of one week, 14 campers and five mentors worked together to learn about the science of flight […]

Be a Mentor!

If you have ever been in a mentoring situation you know just how important the relationship is between a mentor and young person (mentee).  The relationship grows and develops over time as each learns about trust, respect as they nurture that developing connectedness with each other.   Quality mentor/mentee relationships just don’t happen.  They require an […]