Wildlife...on the move again!

We are back on track to another great 4H year.  The Wildlife project always gets a head start because the contest is so early in the year.  We will most likely have our first contest in October (actually we have a contest for plant ID mid-September).  

Here is a quick review of terms we learned today:

• biotic community-living plant and animal populations living in a defined area (WHEP book pg 6)
• abiotic resources-nonliving entity of a community-soil, water, air, and sunlight (WHEP book page 6)
• communities-population of animals and plants in an area (WHEP book page 6)
• ecosystems-the plant community along with the animal community together with soil, air, water, and sunlight (WHEP book Glossary page 202)
• habitat (specifically, food, cover, water, and space)-physical and biological resources required by wildlife for survival and reproduction (WHEP book page 6)

We will also have leadership opportunities for the project members each week.  I really enjoyed learning more about the biological facts fro each species last year.  So, this year we will continue the animal presentations.  The presentations will include:

• Color page with Clover Kid information (basic facts for animal)
• General Biological Information page (see example attached)

This was my example for a color page to study javelina:

I am looking forward to seeing these presentation on the assigned dates:

• White-tailed deer-Zachary-August 28th
• Gray Squirrel-Henry September 4th
• Fox Squirrel-Jarron-September 11th
• Bobwhite Quail-Katy& Matt-September 18th
• Wild Turkey-Taylor-September 25th
• Mourning Dove-Becca-October 2nd
• Waterfowl-Sean-October 9th

I have decided to give 'homework' to the group as well so they stay focused on what we are learning.  This week the group was asked to review the habitat needs for the focus species (shown above).  This information can be found in the Wildlife book (pages 109-111 and in the biological facts section for each animal).

 

We also discussed our own contest that we will create for the Forest Festival in September.  We will have five stations:

• Shooting targets
• Animal Facts/Identification
• Plant Identification
• Entomology
• Pine Identification

The plan is to have a walk up contest entitled, "Do you know as much a 4Her?"  The participants will be able to walk up to the contest and take a try answering the questions.  We will have prizes for top three adult and youth participants.  We hope this will help showcase some of the projects in 4H that are not as well known.  We thought we should work with the outdoor projects to go along with the goals of the Forestry Museum (our sponsor for the contest).

We had a long enough break after the Wildlife meeting to go home and have dinner.  Then Michael took the older boys back into town to go to the Officer training meeting.  Brenda did a great job of explaining the different duties for each office.  Sean was very excited to be given his first check register.  Henry is all geared up to keep track of the pictures for the scrap book.  

There will be some changes for our club meeting as well.  We have had trouble with keeping an accurate roll of attendees in the past.  It is hard for the younger ones to remember to sign in each meeting.  So, Brenda decided to have a vocal roll call.  The decision was also made to have project reports given to the club president for announcing new events.  This will give our president more leadership but takes away from our teen leaders.  I guess we will need to add more to their duties at the project level.


So, we start the year off with a bang...a lot of energy as we learn about the outdoors and about how to be good leaders.  So looking forward to see how we are able to "make the best better" this year!