4-H Citizenship project

4H Conference service

Are You Into It?

Make a difference. Discover the needs of your local community and beyond! Help others! Get into Action! Citizenship is the opportunity, right, and responsibility to contribute to shaping the world around you and provide service to others.

  • Explore your relationships with others: family, peers, state, nation, and world.
  • Get involved! Be an active, responsible citizen.
  • Take action to help others!
  • Show social responsibility, respect, and respond to the needs, rights, and responsibilities of others.

Here’s what you can do all year!

Starting Out Basic / Level 1

  • Get to know the other people in your club and what they like to do for fun.
  • Construct a family tree of relatives identifying places lived and vocations
  • Interview a neighbor and identify the similarities and differences between you
  • Create and carry-out a plan to help someone outside your family
  • Discover the history of your school or community
  • Tour city or state’s hall, Courthouse or capitol
  • Help pick up trash at a park

Learning More Intermediate / Level 2

  • Find out the names of your local or state representatives and the committees they serve on
  • Interview your principal and find out what you and your 4-H Club can do to improve the school grounds
  • Collect samples of club by-laws and constitutions; compare and contrast them
  • Observe a community board meeting
  • Create and carry-out a plan to help someone in your community

Expanding Horizons Advanced / Level 3

  • Volunteer to be a tutor or a mentor in your school
  • Investigate the departments in your county government and find out what they do
  • Interview someone from your local Chamber of Commerce or Economic
  • Development Agency to learn about the goals for your community
  • Identify a cause important to you and determine how to make a difference
  • Map out area resources available to youth and families

 

Back to 4-H Project Home

Take It Further

 

Citizenship Hot Sheet 
(color or b/w pdf)

 

Exhibits Tip Sheet 
(color or b/w pdf)

 

Poster Exhibits Tip Sheet
(color or B/W pdf)

 

Exhibitor Fair Information Form
(Word or editable PDF)

 

Exhibit Evaluation Form (pdf)

 

Here are other opportunities to explore Citizenship:

  • Participate in county or regional Legislative Day activities
  • Apply to be a page in the State Legislature, attend National 4-H Conference or attend National 4-H Congress
  • Attend Citizenship Washington Focus
  • Contact your County Extension office to participate in 4-H County Council
  • Volunteer for a local, county, or state political campaign for a candidate you support
  • Create a team to raise funds and participate in a benefit for a national cause you support
  • Attend Iowa 4-H Youth Conference and participate in workshops, motivational speakers and a community service project, bringing ideas back to your community
  • Is it fair time? Consider taking an exhibit, a piece of your project learning to the fair for judging and to show off what you have learned throughout the year. It might get selected to go to the Iowa State Fair.
  • Contact your county ISU Extension Office for other local workshops, activities, and events
  • Meet others interested in making a difference. Check out camps at the Iowa 4-H Center.
  • Interested in a college education in the area of political science, sociology, public service administration in agriculture, community and regional planning, community and public health? Schedule a visit with Iowa State University to explore those majors.

4-H Resources

4-H Citizenship Project Manuals

Publications available through ISU Extension Online Store or at your County Extension Office.

 

Recordkeeping Form

Other Resources
Step It Up

Pass it on! Now that you know how, share it with others. Here are ideas to get you started.

 

Communication

  • Give a presentation about the history of your school or town
  • Make an appointment with your state legislator and share your thoughts on an issue
  • Read newspapers or newsmagazines on a regular basis
  • Research a community issue and share your ideas with appropriate board or governing body

Leadership

  • Organize friends to clean-up a neighborhood park
  • Ask your local nursing home residents how they would like to celebrate the next holiday and involve others to carry-out the plan
  • Get approval and then create and conduct a survey for students on a school issue; then share the results with the administration
  • Serve as a Youth Delegate to either your state Democratic or Republican Party Convention

Exhibit Ideas

  • Create a poster about the best things in your community
  • Create a video about your community and what visitors should know about it
  • Create a "Welcome to our School" kit to be given to new families
  • Map the resources for youth and families in your community
  • Create a notebook explaining the Bill of Rights and examples in your everyday life
  • Give a presentation about the Checks and Balances of the 3 Branches of
  • Government and how they're important to you
  • Report your exploration of an issue and define how each branch of government plays a role in its creation, interpretation and carry-out
  • Video your group at a service project and interview members about what they did and what it meant to them
  • Research candidates for the next Governor election and put a notebook together sharing their stance on different issues
  • Create a notebook about the things you learned on Citizenship Washington
  • Focus trip and how they impacted you
  • Illustrate in a visual display the process of how a bill becomes a law
  • Create a visual representation about the different branches of government and how they work together