Youth & Family News

When: Through Feb 15th, 2021

Last year, the West Virginia 4-H All Stars generously funded to four mini-grants for West Virginia 4-H  teens/teen leader groups to assist in the planning and completion of a community service project through the My Hands to Larger Service 4-H Project. The 2020 projects were diverse and creative. The images shown are from Wood County's Recycled Sleeping Mats for the Homeless project, where the Teen Leaders learned to repurpose plastic shopping bags to make sleep mats for the local homeless population.

You are invited to join a 4-H Special Interest (SPIN) clubs starting the week of January 18, 2021. There are seven different virtual programs lasting 4-6 weeks depending on the topic. Programs are free and offered to all youths in grades 3rd – 12th. 

Choose a topic of interest to you, then register online through ZSuite. To register for a SPIN Club go to 4h.zsuite.org and enroll in 4-H with your county. Then select the “event” option to choose the topic.

The West Virginia Statewide Afterschool Network (WVSAN) with support from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation is offering mini-grants of up to $7,500 each to support strengthening relationships of Out of School Time (OST) sites, child care centers serving the school aged population, and afterschool programs with their local school systems to work to together to address the extraordinary needs of youth and families during COVID-19.

This video is part of the STEMCARE Next UP with WVU Institute of Technology series.

Youths across the state are invited to participate in several upcoming virtual 4-H workshops. The workshops are free and offered to all youths in 3rd grade and above.

STEMCARE partnered with Energy Express this past summer to bring numerous STEM-related videos to West Virginia Public Broadcasting. From balloon cars to oobleck, this series offers great STEM activities for the entire family. Be sure to visit the Energy Express on WVPB YouTube channel to catch the latest episodes.

Youths across the state are invited to participate in 4-H Special Interest (SPIN) clubs hosted by the Eastern Region of West Virginia. There are six different virtual programs lasting 4-6 weeks depending on the topic. Programs are free and offered to all youths in 3rd grade and above.

Monday, August 3, 2020, 9:30 a.m.

Make it fly! Join Jennifer Robertson-Honecker, WVU Extension Service STEM Specialist, and her son, Ben, to learn how to make your own helicopter that you can fly at your home. ( For this activity, you will creative items from around your house to build your simple machine.) Want to enter the competition? Visit extension.wvu.edu/stemcare to learn more!

Monday, July 27, 2020, 9:30 a.m.

Do you know what a simple machine is? It’s a machine that uses a chain of events to get to an end result, in this case, watering a plant. Join Jennifer Robertson-Honecker, WVU Extension Service STEM Specialist, and her son, Ben, as they read a fun book and relate the book to what tools we need to build our own simple machine. And, you won’t want to miss an opportunity to join the friendly competition in our Rube Goldberg “Water a Plant Video Challenge.” (For this activity, you will use creative items from around your house to build your simple machine.) Want to enter the competition? Visit extension.wvu.edu/stemcare to learn more! An extended version of this episode also will be available on our YouTube channel.