From blogging to podcasting to creating online videos, 4-H youth are leading the way, using new media and communication tools to share breaking news, event coverage and educational information with their community.
For example, the 4-H News technology club in Jefferson County, Wash., provides on-the-spot reports through video clips and podcasts posted to their 4-H Network News Web site. Club members have covered a fire in an historic hotel and a Red Cross disaster training exercise and conducted interviews with local business leaders.
The youth are hands-on in every step of putting together the one-to-two-minute news segments. “We get ideas about what we’ll do and who we’ll interview, then we take the camera, tape footage, put it on the computers and edit it,” 15-year-old Sophie Gilbert said.
Gilbert first created a video about a school reunion but quickly saw the educational value for her community. She has produced segments about avoiding drugs and alcohol and a beach restoration project. “There is a need for us to talk about some of the important things going on in our county and in the world,” she said.
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