Published on April 24, 2024

On April 6, Mehul M. represented Morris County at the NJ State 4-H Foods Day, held at the Somerset 4-H center. He won 1st place in the cook off, plus earned a ribbon participating in the Food & Nutrition Jeopardy game and enjoyed the workshops.

Congratulations Mehul!

Published on April 3, 2024

On Saturday, March 30th we had so many young scientists in grades K-6 attend the 4-H Science-sational Day at the County College of Morris. Participants designed rollercoasters and bridges, learned about bunnies and chicks, tested their rockets modeled after the Rutgers' team's, studied the science of color and the forces at play in a basketball game. They experienced how a search and rescue dog works with scents in different temperatures, dyed eggs with natural colors, met the 4-H NASA Student Launch group, got to interact with The Seeing Eye puppies, and more.

With much thanks to our volunteer presenters and event helpers: North Jersey Homeschool Science Center, High View Farms, SR3NJ, Bill Kerwood magician, Mehul of Teen Council 4-H club, Rutgers Rocket Propulsion Lab (RPL) team, the Ingersoll family, Josh of Teen Council 4-H club, ResistoJets Rocketry Club, The Seeing Eye puppy raisers of the 4-Footed Leaders club, the Miractech team, and CCM.

We already look forward to next year! 

Published on March 26, 2024
By Robert G., member of the ResistoJets 4-H Club

On Saturday, March 16, The 4-H Resistojets Rocketry Club hosted a rocket launch event at High View Farms. This was a follow-up to a build event that took place in February, where each participant built a rocket that was about 20 inches long. Of the 21 participants that showed up to the build day, 18 returned for launch day. All of the rockets flew well!

Published on March 22, 2024
By Avery O., member of the Plants, Pollinators, and Poultry 4-H Club

On March 19th, 2024, the author and illustrator named Rashad Malik Davis came to see the 4-H writing club. He told us about how to make characters out of shapes and how some shapes represent certain feelings or emotions. Like how triangles are evil, circles are usually nice, soft, and calm, and squares are brave and strong. Then he told us to pick a number between 1-15 and a letter between A-O. The number was an emotion and the letter was a character. We had to draw that character, it was super fun. Some kids were really good at drawing, and we all did two or more drawings. Now when I watch tv shows or movies I’m going to see what shapes some characters are made out of. I can’t wait to read some of Rashad Malik Davis’s books!

Last week, I joined 9 other delegates representing New Jersey at Ignite by 4-H, a national conference hosted in the capitol. Ignite brings together three main pillars of 4-H, STEM, Agriscience, and Healthy Living into a 5-day congregation filled with workshops, guest speakers, and special opportunities.

One of my highlights was on the first night when we went out to tour the capitol monuments at night, and with this being my first time visiting, I was sobered by many memorials illustrating the great losses in our time. 

A large part of this event involved states planning and presenting a community service project designed to address a need in their areas. Grants ranging between 2 and 5 thousand dollars are available for states to apply to after the conference, which is the main goal of these projects. We presented a New Jersey program to refurbish reusable bags to donate to food banks, facing struggles in food distribution since the plastic bag ban. 

Overall, Ignite by 4-H offered me a huge range of different experiences and opportunities, all of which I enjoyed thoroughly while contributing to my personal and professional development. I would like to thank our county and state 4-H staff, along with the USDA, for providing this opportunity to me. 

Published on March 13, 2024

Myra G. and Rohan G. participated in this year's World Food Prize event on March 8 as part of the NJ Youth Institute of the World Food Prize Foundation.

The New Jersey Youth Institute is a life-changing experience at the Rutgers University where high school students engage with local leaders and experts on critical global challenges, participate in hands-on activities, and explore exciting ways to make a difference in New Jersey and around the world. The New Jersey Youth Institute is hosted by Rutgers, the State University with the generous support of the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, the New Jersey FFA, New Jersey 4-H, and Rutgers Cooperative Extension. You can find out more about the World Food Prize Foundation here: https://www.worldfoodprize.org/

Congratulations Myra and Rohan!

4-H Awards Ceremony 2023

Published on November 8/2023

Every November our 4-H members' accomplishments and achievements during the previous 4-H year are celebrated at the Awards Ceremony. This year's County Level awards and higher were recognized on Saturday, November 4th at the Morris County Public Safety Training Academy.

Congratulations to all award recipients!

See our 2023 Awards Ceremony page for details.

Update on May 2, 2023

The story is also shared on Rutgers Newsroom: https://sebsnjaesnews.rutgers.edu/2023/05/morris-county-4-h-rocket-team-rocks-launch-week-in-alabama/

Update on April 21, 2023

Watch the segment on news12: https://newjersey.news12.com/jersey-proud-morris-county-4-h-rocket-club-hopes-to-reach-new-heights from yesterday at 10:30pm.

Published on April 19, 2023

The Morris County 4-H Rocket Team had a blast in Huntsville, Alabama last week! All 5 members of the only NJ team were able to travel to the launch week events that were put together by the Student Launch group of NASA. They experienced the thrill of being among the university/college teams and some middle/high school teams preparing for the final launch in this high-power rocket competition. It started on Wednesday with check-in and the rocket hardware checks. The checks were done by seasoned volunteers of the National Association of Rocketry (NAR), who scrutinized every detail of the rocket and payload design, build, and assembly as well as the team members' knowledge on details especially relating to the safety of the rocket and launch. The team only had a few things on their "punch list" and were able to fix them immediately.

The next day was the official kick-off and included various speakers from NASA and Northrop Grumman, a NASA partner and the biggest sponsor of the event. Thursday ended with a fun social gathering for all, where our group was able to get to know other teams and speak with NASA SLI engineers, the NAR official who invented the American Rocketry Challenge (the competition which enabled the team to be there), as well as a few Northrop Grumman managers who encouraged the members to look into internships offered by their company and NASA, including some for high school students.

“We’re just five kids from New Jersey, we don’t go to the same school or even live in the same city, but here we are launching rockets with NASA,”  The team captain, Sean McConoughey, said in an interview with NASA, which is featured in NASA's official release about the competition finals.

Friday morning was free for a visit to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville where barrel rolls and flips were tested (and physically experienced) in the simulator. From 3-6 pm, all teams were part of the Rocket Fair at the Van Braun Center, which was open to the public and very well attended. Our 4-H Team had a steady flow of visitors to their table. "Most people asked about the external payload of the rocket which had a rotating camera arm, and some were curious about how a 4-H team got into the competition." said Holt Englander, safety officer of the team. They even had Homer Hickam, former NASA engineer and the author of Rocket Boy, the basis of the movie October Sky, stop by and sign their rocket.

Saturday was finally the long-awaited Launch Day! The team drove to Bragg Farms, the launch site near Huntsville, before sunrise and set up in beautiful fog. When their launch time finally arrived around midday, it was clear, sunny, and HOT. The team was in the last volley (round) of the event, and it was even further delayed by unexpected hiccups like little fires that needed to be put out, cables shorting out, and other things not working as expected. This offered time to give a short interview (watch at 6:33:07 of the recording on NASA's YouTube channel), hang out some more, chat with a few more people, and drink the last bit of water...

Then their launch was up. The rocket took off like a lightning bolt! It was beautiful. After it arced over, the drogue parachute came out as planned and at the correct lower altitude the main parachute was deployed and unfolded perfectly - until it got hit by a part of the rocket, folded up and stayed that way until the rocket landed HARD.

But since the main experience was really the thrill of being there, having gone through all the steps to reach that point, having completed all the hard work of writing documents all night to have them ready on the morning they were due, presenting the designs and changes to the NASA engineers in the review interviews, having built and tested the subscale and full scale rockets, and rebuilding parts and pieces over the last 9 months - it really didn't matter. They were there. Their rocket launched. They were exhausted, and on a rocket high. It was all worth it!

"I loved being a part of the team this year and strongly encourage anyone who likes STEM to join a team or start their own. It's hard, but it's one of the best learning experiences, especially for middle school and highschoolers, there is. I hope to see more 4-H clubs at student launch in the future." the club's photographer and social media manager, Mya McConoughey, said, encouraging students across the country to push themselves to new heights.

The awards ceremony will be held on June 6th. We will keep you posted on the results.

The team would like to thank their generous sponsors: the Morris County 4-H Association, New Jersey Space Grant Consortium, Rutgers Extension Services, the Morris County Board of Agriculture, and High View Farms, as well as their mentor for their support. 

See the recording of the launch day event on the YouTube Channel of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLuCndLABTY and pictures and videos on the NASA Student Launch Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NASAStudentLaunch

Published on February 15, 2023
By Sean M.

As the Morris County 4-H'er of the year, I was honored to be our representative to the New Jersey agriculture ambassador reception this year on February 8th. Approximately 20 kids from 4-H counties and other agriculture-oriented programs had a chance to exhibit and talk about what they've done as a part of their respective groups. It was great to meet with 4-H and Rutgers partners, industry professionals, and fellow youth from across the state. The dinner was great and the speaker gave a very interesting life perspective on how important attitudes are.

I had a great time talking to and meeting people I had previously only known from virtual meetings. The event was a unique experience, being my first convention dinner, and changed my perspective on events going forward.

Thank you Morris County 4-H for this opportunity.

Published on February 8, 2023

The first in-person public presentation workshop since 2019 had a great turnout! 4-H alum Johanna Pipoli, together with 4-H Agent Kelly Dziak, led the participants through the process of how to select a topic, pick the best format for your presentation, fill out the structure, and perfect the form. They went over what Public Presentations on May 6th will be like and what the judges are looking for (spoiler alert: mainly to see all participants succeed and become even better public speakers in the future!). We had many great presenters give their fabulous mini talks on fun topics and got creative juices flowing on presentation ideas.

If you missed the workshop you can go to our club resources page and scroll down for details on 4-H Public Presentations:

https://www.morris4h.org/4-h-clubs/club-resources

4-H Scrapbook workshop

Published on January 24 2023
By Sophia K. - 4-H member and workshop leader

We met on Saturday to make a scrapbook page for our record books. We covered what are different types of record books, including scrapbooking. We learned a few design guidelines like using the rule of 3rds, creating a visual triangle, and using color and embellishments for interest. We had a great time! 

MLK Day Project

Published on January 18, 2023

On Monday, January 16th, 4-H'ers and their family members gathered at the 4-H office to make sandwiches for Project Kind. Eleven youth and ten adults representing Buckanears, Dogs R Us, Curious Critters, Horsin’ Around, Furry Friends, and Teen Council, assembled 175 decorated bags with PB&J sandwiches and snacks. The whole event lasted 1.5 hours and there are plenty of peanut butter and jelly jars ready for next time.

Sandwiches for Project Kind

Published on December 21, 2022
By Aniket P.

For a couple of years now, my brother and I have been donating PB&Js to Project Kind to support their numerous service projects. It all started in 2020, where we got all the bread for the sandwiches donated by a bakery and delivered to our house by 4-H volunteer Valerie. 

As this years holidays came around, I figured now since I am a part of the 4-H Teen Council, we could organize something that would end up making lots more sandwiches for people in need than my brother and I could ever. Once finished we ended with so many sandwiches it was hard to fit them in the car we had brought. Overall it was a lot of fun. 

Thank you 4-H Leaders!

Published on December 12, 2022

The 4-H Leaders' Social was held on December 8 at Polo's Restaurant in Netcong as a Thank-you to all 4-H club leaders, board members, active alum, as well as higher youth award winners. It was a lovely event with delicious food, new and renewed connections, and lots of fun.

Morris Team gets 2nd Place

Published on December 7, 2022
By Benjamin Janis

Cupcake Wars - 12/3/2022
Location: Somerset County 4H, NJ

Gabriel L., Jessenia L. and Benjamin J. participated in the annual Cupcake Wars by the Masters Chefs club in Somerset County 4-H. We were the only team from Morris County 4-H that participated. 

The rules of the competition were that cupcakes had to be made from scratch, two or three people on a team and each bakes six cupcakes. We participated as Juniors and there were six teams.

We decided to make a Chocolate Explosion cupcake made with chocolate cake, chocolate icing, chocolate sprinkles, Hershey Kisses and cocoa powder on the display plate. We used a homemade buttercream recipe from Gabriel’s Mom for the icing and it was delicious!

We won second place with a score of 85/90 and we were super happy.

4-H tree for the Festival of Trees

Published on December 7, 2022

Nearly all our 4-H clubs made and contributed beautiful and unique ornaments to decorate our "4-H Tree" at the Frelinghuysen Arboretum for their first annual Festival of Trees! The outcome is a masterpiece of Creativity, Collaboration, and Fun! 

We thank 4-H parent Rebecca J. to find and coordinate the event. Her family also created ornaments for every club with the club names on them, and they did all the setup and decorating on December 2nd. And thank you Rosanne for the tree. 

The Festival of Trees is open in the newly renovated mansion at the arboretum on Fridays and Saturdays, December 9, 10, 16, 17, 23, 24 and Tuesday to Saturday December 27 - December 31 from 10 am to 4 pm.

Admission is $10 per person. Space is limited. You can get your tickets for the 30 minutes times slots here: tinyurl.com/MCPCFestival.

4-H at Home for the Holidays

Published on December 7, 2022

The 4-H station at the Roxbury library was a hit again this year at their Home for the Holidays event on December 3rd. Thank you to all who came and participated!

2022 Awards Ceremony

Published on November 14/2022

Every November our 4-H members' accomplishments and achievements during the previous 4-H year are celebrated at an awards event. This year's County Level awards and higher were recognized at our 4-H Awards Ceremony this past Saturday, November 12 at the Morris County Public Safety Training Academy.

Congratulations to all award recipients!

See our 2022 Awards Ceremony page for details and photos.

Published: on October 22, 2021
By: Mya - Minecraft club member

On Friday, October 15th, the Minecraft club hosted a live event about a local neighborhood in New Jersey. The tour was started in a nursing home. Sean and everyone in the nursing home was in an accident, and doesn’t remember anything. Holt the nurse, had Sean and the group go back to their houses to try jogging their memories. By the end of the stream, Sean and the group got their memories back, and started going to therapy. Below are some pictures of the world and the link to watch the livestream. 

Haunted Village Video