Georgia 4-H

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Environmental Education at Georgia 4-H

As one of the nation's largest providers of residential environmental education, the Georgia 4-H Environmental Education Program invites you & your students to join the safe haven of Georgia's outdoor classroom. Operating September through May of each year, our five 4-H Centers provide opportunities throughout the state for high-quality day and residential educational experiences. Our research-based curriculum correlates to Georgia Performance Standards, providing hands-on learning in the context of the real world. The Georgia 4-H Environmental Education Program is operated by the University of Georgia, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Cooperative Extension and is proud to serve as a partner in education with public, private, and homeschool groups across the Southeast.
As of the spring of 2011, our program has served over 878,000 participants since its inception in 1979!

See for Yourself!

Download our 2009-2010 Program Review to learn more about the value of our programs and evaluation summaries.

View our video about the Georgia 4-H Environmental Education programming.

To turn on captions, in Windows Media Player 9, select Play>Captions and Subtitles>On if Available (or English); in Windows Media Player 10, select Tools>Options>Security>Show local captions when present; in Windows Media Player 11, select Play>Lyrics, Captions, and Subtitles>Captions.

Text only transcript

What Educators Have to Say About the Three R's

Read what a few teachers have shared with us about the value of our EE Programs and how it related to the 3 R's of rigor, relevance, and relationships:

I see a correlation between some of the questions on the CRCT and some of the information that we’ve learned in the [Georgia 4-H EE] classes. Like I know 5th grade CRCT asks about barrier islands and so if the information is correlated with the state standards and a lot of that is showing up on the CRCT and that correlation is essential for me to validate bringing the students to participate in the programs.		We put them in different groups for their cabins, we put them in different groups for their daily activities. So they get to know everybody else, you know. And I just think they grow a lot as a grade, as a cohesive grade, they kind of have more bonding and they just can have a respect for each other in a different way. They shine in different ways and it comes out more here than it does in a traditional classroom.

Our children have different levels of experience in nature but when you come here, that can really help them be in touch with that part of the world. People don’t help preserve things they don’t care about so later on as adults if they develop some level of caring for the earth, not just from learning in a book or watching a video but being here, smelling it and hearing the birds, touching. That’s going to be a positive thing for the earth that they’ll care about it and also coming to learn a little bit about how things are connected. You know, they are connected with their friends, all these relationships, they get improved here. But also their connected to the earth.		Here [at a Georgia 4-H Center] we have so much more and we obviously talk about the environment throughout the year—it’s importance particularly when we are discussing science. That comes up ...in herpetology ..., obviously the [instructors] are so knowledgeable but really hitting on a lot of those specific terms as we do have GA standards and knowing those exact vocab things that they definitely wouldn’t have been exposed to. Just seeing this preserved and this is important. This is something they don’t have in their neighborhoods.

Georgia 4-H Environmental Education

Naturally gets students outside and connected with the environment
Aligned with the current state curriculum standards
Taught by well-trained and college educated instructors
Uses the outdoors as a classroom without walls
Reaches students through physical & active classes up to 8 hrs per day
Excellence: a tradition since 1979

The University of Georgia and Ft. Valley State University, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and counties of the state cooperating. The Cooperative Extension Service offers educational programs, assistance and materials to all people without regard to race, color, national origin, age, sex or disability. An equal opportunity/affirmative action organization committed to a diverse work force.