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Natural Resources Curriculum Committee Meeting Minutes
Telephone Conference Call Notes
November 11th, 2005
Members Present: Debbie Beisel, Chad Barclay, Margaret Brittingham, Jennifer Fetter, Helaine Brown, Sanford Smith (chair) Absent With Good Excuses: Susan Taylor (sorry, the call didn’t go through), Kathy Sacco, Nicole Foremsky.
Item Discussed:
1) Curriculum Updates: Sandy gave a report on two pieces of curriculum that were discussed at prior meetings: Trees+Me=Foresty and the 4-H Fishing Project. Trees+Me has been revised and updated by Bob Hansen and Sandy. It has gone through two edit cycles and it is in the final design phase. It should be ready by Spring 06. A new section has been added about GPS and the compass section has some corrected information. The PA Fishing project is not done yet. We provided input to the PFBC (Fish Commission) last May and they indicated that they were working on this in September. We decided to do a limited purchase of the national 4HCCS fishing books this year and Sandy will oversee their distribution to prevent stockpiling. Counties are limited to requesting just what they need. So far 22 counties have requested 589 books. These national books have been used by many counties in the past and were well received.
2) Orienteering Project: We have been asked to support this project under our committee. It has not been updated in almost 20 years. Sandy has a work-study student looking for a good Orienteering Project to use from another state, but this has been hard to find. We may have to update and revise our existing book. We also know that there are other resources out there. Chad mentioned he used the book: “Be an Expert with a Map and Compass” and Debbie and Chad indicated that they are involved in a local (Western PA) orienteering club. Their website and a National Orienteering group web site are: (Western PA Orienteering Club http://wpoc.org/ , US Orienteering Federation: http://www.us.orienteering.org/ ). They have several national competitors in their county also. One in particular who would probably be willing to help us with curriculum or training. Helaine and Jennifer mentioned that they also know adults involved with orienteering, and Jennifer volunteered to check into finding a list of state organizations.
3) Natural Resources Related Inservices and Meetings: Sandy stated that he has proposed an Orienteering and a separate Fishing In-Service for the March Inservice Week in 2006. Tim Gilbert an expert orienteering instructor will help with our training on March 14, and several PA educators will assist with the fishing inservice. There will also be Curriculum Caravans scheduled in the coming year that Sandy will be attending.
4) 2006 4H State Curriculum Proposals: It was agreed that we should submit a proposal for updating/revising the 4-H Orienteering Project. We might develop this as an downloadable project or we might simply do a traditional project book. Sandy will check into the details concerning these two approaches.
5) Other Topics: Debbie raised the issue of the Forestry and the Habitat Evaluation Projects not being considered “projects” in her county. She has been told that they are “contests” and do not really constitute 4H projects. She would like to correct this situation, by either getting these recognized as projects or perhaps developing a members record book that would be acceptable to her county. Since this dilemma is probably being experienced in other counties as well, Sandy asked Debbie to check with her 4H Educator to see what she thinks would be acceptable to agents across the state.
Lastly Jennifer brought up a topic of concern to her. She is new to 4-H and recently worked with State Parks here in PA. She reported that many of the 117 State Parks in Pennsylvania offer educational programming at little or no cost to the public. Nearly 70 of the parks have Environmental Education Specialists (EES's) on staff that provide programs to school groups, scout troops, and other youth organizations like 4-H. Many of these EES's are eager and willing to work with all types of youth groups at their park sites, however few are familiar with the 4-H projects and curriculum. She said that we should encourage local EES folks to review some of the environmental education 4-H projects and take advantage of this valuable and affordable resource that exists all over the state. To find out which have educational programming, visit the PA State Parks website at http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/index.aspx Here you can choose to view a list of parks that offer programming and the time of year programs are offered. Many times parks that do not have educators on staff all year may still have volunteers or educators from other parks that would be willing to help you out at all times of the year. Jennifer agreed to write this information up for an Around The State in 4H (ATS) article and Sandy will pass it on to the appropriate person.
5) NEXT MEETING: A telephone conference call was scheduled for Wednesday, MAY 10, 2006, 9-10 AM. Sandy will coordinate the call.