January 2014 Newsletter

Clover Connection
Volume 1, Issue 1
Broward 4-H program and clubs host the
2013 National Youth Science Day
On Wednesday October 9th, 2013,
Broward 4-H hosted the 2013 National
Youth Science day at the Oak Ridge Hall
in Tree Tops Park in Davie. Five Broward
County Public Schools attended the
event. These schools included Apollo
Middle Magnet, Hollywood Hills
Elementary, Margate Middle Magnet,
Silver Lakes Middle Magnet and
Lauderhill 6-12 STEM-MED Magnet
Schools. All the middle schools that
participated are STEM Magnet Schools.
A total of 140 youth from
these schools took part in this year’s
experiment entitled Maps And Apps,
designed by Colorado State University
Extension. Volunteers from the District 13
Council, Nova School of Optometry,
Broward College Teacher Education
Program, Earth Advisors, University of
Florida Geomatics Program, and Broward
County Natural Resources Planning and
Management Division led the experiment
as youth worked in groups of 6 to design
and map their ideal park. Youth designed
the park in 8 different layers beginning
with Natural hydrology features and
natural vegetation features and
culminating with human made point
features and natural features added by
humans.
Several of the Broward clubs also hosted
a Science Day during their October
meetings. Rock Café hosted their event
at the Hurricane House in Davie.
Everlasting Everglades hosted their event
under a pavilion at the Tree Tops park.
Both Stepping Stones and Tropical
Troopers 4-H clubs hosted their event at
a club members house, during a club
meeting. Members of the Sunshine
Gators club decided to use technology for
this year's experiment and took part in
the online version of their experiment.
They designed the park using a computer
program and uploaded the end result to
the National 4-H website. The Driftwood
Middle School Dig-It club also did their
experiment online.
The Broward 4-H program
was awarded the State Spirit
Award by the National 4-H
Council. This was a new
award given to the state
program that hosted the
largest and most National
Youth Science Day events and posted on
the National Youth Science Day event
map.
The National Youth Science Day is a
national rallying day to promote STEM
education, programs, and jobs to youth in
4-H programs. Over 6 million youth
nation-wide are involved in STEM
programs and 4-H has been at the
forefront of promoting STEM based
programs for the past 100 years. This is
the 6th year that the National 4-H Council
has launch a National Youth Science Day
in the United States.
1
Broward County Extension Education
Parks and Recreation Division
in this issue
2 - 4-H Holds Health Day
- L.A.W
3 - What is growing in your Garden
- My Garden Plot
- Volunteer
- Extension Open House
4 - Orange Blossom Parade
- 4-H Chicken Barbeque
- 4-H National Science Day
5 - Bee Keeper Cause It
- Broward County Council
- Marine Ecology
6 - JMG News
8 - 4-H Alumni Corner
- Calendar
from the agent’s desk
Hello all,
2013 was a very busy year for the 4-H
program. Our Broward Cooperative
Extension Program relocated to a
temporary location . We are now
located at the Tree Tops Satellite
office at 3900 SW 100th Avenue in
Davie. With the move, the office
space and materials were downsized,
our clubs’ production has been
extremely active. This issue
encompasses several articles of the
events and happenings during the
2013 year. Many of the articles were
written by 4-H members who would
like to share their 4-H Experiences
with the Broward Community. Enjoy!
4-H Youth Development Agent I
4-H HOLDS ‘HEALTH DAY” AT OLIVER HOOVER ELEMENTARY
Twelve youth from the 4-H District XIII
Council, comprised of Miami-Dade,
Broward, and Palm Beach counties held
a health day at Oliver Hoover
Elementary School. This event is part of
a state-wide 4-H partnership with
United Healthcare entitled “Eat4Health.”
With obesity becoming an epidemic in
our country, 4-H teen health
ambassadors are developing community
-focused events that engage youth in
learning about healthy lifestyles. By
offering interactive educational
activities, youth are guided in
developing positive perspectives on
health and nutrition. The event at Oliver
Hoover consisted on three stations,
through which 145 5th-grade students
rotated during the course of the school
day.
At the “Sugar Station,” students looked
at the sugar content in different drinks.
It was established that “go drinks,” such
as 1% low fat milk, non-dairy milks, and
water were the best drinks to have on a
regular basis. “Slow drinks,” such as
100% fruit juice and flavored milks,
while containing many healthy
nutrients, still contain a great amount of
sugar. It was recommended that
students only consume 6 ounces of
“slow drinks” a day. The “stop drinks”
featured a variety of sodas, energy
drinks, fruit punch, lemonade, and iced
tea, and were found to be full of sugar
with absolutely no nutritional value.
Students counted out teaspoon after
teaspoon of sugar, to discover that a 20
ounce bottle of cola has 17 teaspoons of
sugar! Anyone who drinks one of these
containers a day for a year would be
eating as much as 30 pounds of sugar in
a year!
restaurant or from pre-packaged or frozen
items purchased to eat at home. They
found that many burgers, sandwiches, and
even salads can have anywhere from 6 to 9
teaspoons of fat in them. In order to get a
visual picture of what they sometimes eat,
the students created “blubber burgers” as
they counted out teaspoons of butter to
represent the fat content in many fast
foods. Participants practiced checking the
fat content of different items from various
fast food restaurant menus and were
encouraged to make healthier choices
when they do choose to eat fast foods.
The third station gave students practice on
reading Nutrition Fact Labels from
different products. At this station, they
learned to check the serving size, the
number of servings per containers, and the
sugar and fat content in different products.
The station focused on encouraging
students to make healthier snack choices
as students explored the fat and sugar
content of various snack products by
reading the labels and then lining
themselves up in order from least to
greatest content. The importance of
exercise as part of a healthy life style was
also emphasized and students did some
fun exercises while at this station.
4-H is a volunteer youth organization open
to children ages five (5) through 18.
SUBMITTED BY
JULIE DIAZ
DISTRICT 13 COUNCIL ADVISOR
At the “Fast Food Station,” students
compared the fat content in different
kinds of fast foods, whether from a
https://www.facebook.com/
Florida4H.District13
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L.A.W.
"L.A.W.", an abridgement for
"Leadership Adventure Weekend",
is an annual superintendence
geared towards equipping juvenile
audiences with the proper skills
and training used for leadership.
The primary focus this year
stressed on educating its
congregation in worldwide dietary
affairs and obesity epidemic rates,
as well as various other
amalgamations of the nutritional
sciences. The blueprints of this
particular health summit were
comprised of multiple
demonstrative interfaces which
served to greatly enhance the
overall learning experience of its
participants, thus instilling in them
a more enriched understanding of
the material presented.
Furthermore, it managed to
successfully implement a unique
form of reciprocal inquisition that
appears to be in its infancy, still,
amongst many diversified schools
of thought. Along with adequate
juxtapositions of tangible data
and a relatively straightforward
delivery, (reminiscent of Occam's
Razor) L.A.W. was a triumph of
the imagination. The epitome of
this conference, however, was
the exclusive fact that it
awakened in its youth, a sincere
respect for the human body that
had hitherto been so
lackadaisically consigned to
oblivion.
CHRISTOPHER BARNES
WHAT IS GROWING IN YOUR GARDEN
My name is Michele D'Aquino and I am a
fourth-grade 4-H Member. This is my second
and final year in the 4-H Junior Master
Gardener Program with Mrs. Bonny Hajducko
and Mrs. Cindi Owen.
In order to get our garden ready, we all had
to turn the soil, add seaweed compost, and
plant the seeds.
Our class meets twice a month at the Old
Davie Schoolhouse where we plant, grow and
harvest our vegetables in the 4-H Garden.
Each family gets to take care of their own
garden section, which also includes weeding.
In my garden section, I am growing corn,
collards, tomatoes, strawberries, brussel
sprouts, cabbage, cucumbers and squash.
Everything tastes so fresh.
It's a lot of work, but I am learning a
lot and enjoying the class. I am proud
to be a 4-H member.
MICHELE D’AQUINO
MY GARDEN PLOT
Beginning the task of taking care of my
own garden plot at the Old Davie School
was a daunting idea for me.
What if nothing grew? What if the bugs
ate all the plants and
I had to keep
starting over? What
if all harvests from
the garden were
small and barely
edible? I realize now
that worrying was
both kind of silly and
normal.
Sometimes things
didn’t grow, such as the snap peas that we
replanted several times to no avail.
bite damage isn’t going to miraculously make all
the bugs stop eating the leaves, once and for all.
Gardening takes time and patience, if you don’t
let the carrots mature enough you’ll only ever
get baby carrots an inch long. If you don’t
prune and water daily then the broccoli will
never reach its full potential.
However if you put time, patience, and
good old hard work you will be able to reap
the benefits much better than if you were
lazy and impatience. Gardening not only
provided me with a natural look on the food
we buy out of the supermarket, but an
understanding that good things do indeed
come to those who wait.
SUMAYYAH SHAREEF
Broward County
4-H is currently
looking for new
volunteers.
There are many
ways of getting
involved, from
preplanning
special events to
starting your very
own 4-H club in
your community
today.
4-H is so much
more than you
think.
Healthy Living;
Cooking; Sewing;
Photography;
Dancing; Science;
Art; Plants, ECO
Friendly Living..
———————Come and
explore 4-H
extension open house
JAN.
25
3205 College Ave., Davie, FL 33314
954-577-6300
Please join the Gator Nation for our
Annual Open House
Saturday, January 25, 2014
10 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Sometimes the bugs chewed at the leaves
relentlessly until the leaves looked like a
three year old had repeatedly poked the
leaves through with a pencil for the fun of
it. Some days we didn’t harvest anything
at all I learned that like everything in life
gardening is a work in progress, growing a
nice sized beet doesn’t happen overnight
and it doesn’t happen the first time
around.
Spraying under the leaves to prevent bug
volunteer
At this event, you, your family, and
friends will learn about all that the
University of Florida IFAS Extension
can offer you and your family.
*Food trucks will be on site*
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THE TOWN OF DAVIE’S ORANGE BLOSSOM PARADE
On Saturday February 23, 2013 Broward
4-H members marched in Davie’s Orange
Blossom Parade.
The theme of this year’s parade was
“Orange you glad to live in Davie”, so the
County Council decided to wear orange
accessories with our 4-H shirts. The
orange accessories included headbands,
bandanas, hats, bows, earrings,
sunglasses, leis, socks, shorts and even
orange sprayed hair! Clubs represented
in this year’s parade included Stepping
Stones, Rock Café, Sunshine Harvesters
and Sunshine Gators.
This year we added a pickup truck
holding a Large 4-H Clover to lead our
group in the parade. Also for the first
time, we
lined up
in front
of the
judges’
stand
and
recited the 4-H pledge.
While marching in the parade some
Broward 4-Her’s simultaneously
participated in District XIII’s Tri- County
Walk-a-thon to raise money for Feed My
Starving Children. 4-Her’s from
Sunshine Gators, Stepping stones and
My Starving Children.
Everyone had fun and can’t wait for
next year’s parade!
DANIELLE O’CONNOR
COUNTY COUNCIL
REPORTER 2012-2013
4-H CHICKEN BARBEQUE
Congratulations to our 4-H 20132014 Chicken Barbeque winners. IN
the Junior division Karl Waldman
took 1st place. Intermediate
Division winner was Marina Turner.
Senior division winner was Towns
McClain who will move on to
participate in the State competition
this summer.
SUBMITED BY BROWARD 4-H
Rock Café raised a total of $367 for Feed
4-H NATIONAL YOUTH SCIENCE DAY 2013
Broward 4-H Clubs and Council Members
are actively engaged in this year’s National Youth Science Day Experiment.
Clubs featured are the Rock Café, Stepping Stones, Tropical Troopers and 20132014 County Council Members. Other
Clubs that participated in the event but
are not pictured were the Footprints,
Everlasting Everglades, Driftwood Dig-Its
and the Sunshine Gators.
The events took place
during the National 4-H
week from October 6th
thru October 12, 2013.
4
BEE KEEPER CAUSES A BUZZ
The Stepping Stones 4-H club did things a
little differently for the month of March.
The club was scheduled to learn about
stings as part of their first aid study. In
light of this, club leader, Mrs. Ducanis
engaged a bee-keeper to teach the club
about Bees. Dan Novak, or Dan the Bee
Man, brought a portable bee hive,
posters and examples of empty wooden
frames filled with an abandoned bee
hive. Mr. Novak shared about the many
species of bees, the different jobs bees
take on, and the process of
growing from a larva to a full
grown worker bee. He
explained what each bee does
from day 1 to day 100 to the
end of its life.
they keep their stingers so whichever
queen prevails and does not die is the
official queen. The queen bee’s main job
is to lay the eggs for new bees. She can
lay as many as 1500 eggs in one day.
When one of these ordinary eggs is laid,
newly hatched bees start to feed it
nectar. It grows and then hatches it, then
takes the job of the bees that fed it. They
nurse the other larvae that are growing.
After about 2 days of nursing larvae, the
new bee graduates to becoming a worker
bee. It is
The queen bee is the largest of
all and is the head of all the
bees. Bee-keepers usually
paint a little bit of special paint
on her to recognize her when
they see her. The queen bee is
fed with royal jelly until she is
large. When she hatches, she may go
and kill any other threats to her position
if they are not hatched yet, or she may
be forced to fight for her life with
another newly hatched queen. Queen
bees do not die when they sting, and
Esther Bosworth
Marine Ecology
Congratulations to our 2013-2014 County Council officers!
Rose Ducanis
Vice President
This just scratches the surface of everything
he shared, but these facts are some of the
basic yet interesting facts to know about a
bee. If you see a bee, it is most likely a
worker bee, wearing out its wings. It will only
sting you if you make it think you might hurt
it. If a bee stings you, take care not to
squeeze the little pouch at the tip of the
stinger. If you do, this will squeeze more of
the venom into your body. If you see a lot of
bees flying together as one body in a knot of
bees, it is a swarm. This means that the
queen bee is getting old. She has taken some
of the worker bees and has left to start a new
hive somewhere else. It is best to leave these
swarms alone.
The club learned a lot and was very attentive
to what Mr. Novak had to share. Mr. Novak
showed the club a mini beehive, all of which
was very interesting and good to know.
Above all, when it comes to bees, ‘bee
careful!
BROWARD COUNTY COUNCIL
Julie Weiss
President
that for the rest of its life. These worker bees
are all females, and do all the work. They’re
the ones that wear their wings to nothing
flying here and there, to and from flowers,
gathering nectar. They also drop some of the
pollen on the other flowers they go to which
fertilizes them.
Congratulations to our 2013 Marine Ecology
Event Competitors. Our competitors also
placed in the Marine Ecology Event Photo
Competition in November in Orlando, Florida.
Danielle O’Connor won first place in the Marine Habitats Category. Shane O’Connor won
first place in the People and Water Category
and Hayden Hawes, a new 4-H member won a
People’s Choice Award for his photo of the
Florida Keys.
Michele D’Aquino
Sergeant- at- Arms
Joseph Ducanis
Parliamentarian
Danielle O’Connor
Treasurer
Olivia Paul
Reporter
Eva Ducanis
Secretary
5
JUNIOR MASTER GARDENERS NEWS
You might think that gardening is just a bunch
of flowers and dirt, but it’s actually very enjoyable and also very interesting. We are part
of the 4-H Sunshine Harvesters club at the Old
Davie School House. We have been part of
the Junior Master Gardener program for 3
months now. We’ve learned so much already
from our teachers Ms. Bonny, Ms. Cindi and
Mr. Matt. They have taught us so much about
gardening and different insects like good
nematodes which keep away the bad nematodes from eating the roots of our plants.
Our plants have grown so much from the day
we started. On the very first day we tilled the
dirt to get it ready for the seeds and plants to
grow. We shoveled out the walkways and
made rows for our plants. We dug so much
that day that our hands had blisters and we
almost made it to China! Well, not really, but
we did hit old irrigation pipes. The first day
we planted corn, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, and peppers. (Check
out the progress pictures that show how our
garden is growing.)
felt like somebody lit a match on them for about 15
minutes. Today our garden is full of
vegetables. We’ve already harvested
plenty of radishes and have thinned our
corn stalks so they have room to grow.
Our tomato plants have small green
tomatoes and many flowers waiting to
bloom into more tomatoes. This has
been a very enjoyable and fun experience, and we are very excited that it’s
just the beginning.
P.S We also enjoyed a presentation by
Dr. Pipoly from the Broward Extension
Office. He’s developing curriculum for
a Junior Master Naturalist program and
a Junior Master Landscaper program
for 6th-8th graders. These programs
should be ready in two years!
Nicolas and Annaleisa Matzirakis
It doesn’t just stop with planting. We’ve already gotten to harvest some veggies from
the garden. A true and funny story about
harvesting the peppers is that when our family went to the garden to tend to it, we noticed
that some peppers were ready to be harvested. It was our first time harvesting, and we
were very excited to bring something home
from the garden. Unlucky for us, we picked
the wrong pepper.
We put the so called “sweet banana peppers” on our sandwiches, but when we bit
into them we quickly found out that the
label was incorrect because are tongues
6
7
4-H alumni corner
upcoming events
Congratulations to Mindy Proaño on the birth of
her daughter Melody Sophia Proaño on
November 1, 2013!
event tickets & registration
JANUARY
Jan. 2
Livestock Evaluation & Meats judging Clinic, registration & payment due
Jan. 3
Leadership Adventure Weekend (L.A.W.) Registration Deadline
Jan. 7
County Council Meeting at UF Research Center Room 130 3205 College
Avenue Davie 6-8 p.m.
Leadership Adventure Weekend (L.A.W.) LATE Deadline
Jan. 10
Jan. 14-16
Jan. 17-19
Jan. 25
Jan. 30
Youth Development Institute (YDI), Ocala Hilton
Leadership Adventure Weekend (L.A.W.), Camp Ocala
UF IFAS Open House 10a.m.-3:00 p.m. 3205 College Avenue Davie 33314
New Volunteer Orientation at the Hurricane House 3205 College Avenue
Davie 6-9 p.m.
Feb. 4
Feb. 7
Feb. 14
Feb. 14
Feb. 21
Feb. 21-23
Feb. 28–Mar. 2
County Council Meeting at Hurricane House 3205 College Avenue Davie 6-8
p.m.
District Council Meeting at UF Research Center Room 130 3205 College
Avenue Davie 6-9 p.m.
Intermediate Teen Health Summit Registration Deadline
Intermediate Teen Health Summit LATE Deadline
3rd Executive Board Registration Deadline
3rd Executive Board LATE Deadline
Intermediate Teen Health Summit, Camp Ocala
3rd Executive Board (Open to all Senior 4-Hers), Camp Ocala
TBD
Muzzle Loading State Competition
FEBRUARY
Feb. 6
facebook
contact
Broward 4-H Youth Development Program
Broward Parks and Recreation Division/
Extension Education
3245 College Ave., Davie, FL 33314-7719
954.357.5270 FAX # 954.357.8740
www.broward.org/Parks/Extension/4H
www.solutionsforyourlife.com
A SERVICE OF THE BROWARD COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Broward County programs are open to all persons regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, gender, age, disability, or sexual
orientation. Disabled individuals are requested to notify program two days prior to program if auxiliary aid or assistance is required.
Disabled parking space and wheelchair ramp are available.
"Solutions for your life" A collaborative partnership between Broward County Board of County Commissioners and the University
of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS)
The Foundation for the Gator Nation, An Equal Opportunity Institution
8
“ 200 copies of this document were
promulgated at a gross cost of $44.00,
and $0.22, per copy to market Broward
County 4-H.”

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