Research and write the history of the development, distribution and use of national educational aids, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, and the many appointed developmental committees which created the curriculum design and did much of the writing for the literature development - member manuals, leader guides and supportive A/V materials. Also under this team will be the assignment of doing the research and documentation of the various subject matter-based 4-H events including the National 4-H Dairy Conference, National 4-H Commodity Marketing Symposium, National 4-H Poultry Judging Contest, Eastern and Western Automotive Events, Horse Round-up and others.

The History leadership team received three large cartons of national 4-H curriculum materials from Iowa State University. Some 180 manuals, all developed between 1990 and 2010. Developed by the National 4-H Cooperative Curriculum Systems and copyrighted, it appears that unlike prior national materials, we may not have the opportunity to digitize these manuals for inclusion on the 4-H history website. Jim Kahler is planning on discussing this procedure for developing national materials at an upcoming 4-H leadership team meeting.

Larry Krug

The history on two additional national events has been added to the National 4-H History section of the history website: National 4-H FilmFest and National 4-H Engineering Challnge.

Larry Krug

Several segments on national 4-H events have been posted on the National 4-H Histpry Preservation website in the National 4-H History section.

These include:

- 4-H Events, General
- Earliest National 4-H Event
- Automotive Care and Safety Contest
- National 4-H Commodity Marketing Symposium
- National 4-H Congress - Atlanta
- National 4-H Dairy Conference
- National 4-H Engineering Events
- National 4-H Forestry Invitational
- National 4-H Horse Round-Up
- National 4-H Meat Judging Contest
- National 4-H Poultry Judging and Egg Contest
- National 4-H Shooting Sports Invitational
- National Wildlife Habitat Education Program (WHEP)
- Space Camp
- Western National RoundUp

For those subject matter events which are still operational, our next step is to contact the coordinators and solicit their support in getting additional history for each specific event where there still are some gaps.

Larry Krug, Chair

Bradley Kuennen, Collections Assistant, Iowa State University Archives, send us around 30 national publications… mostly member manuals and leader guides, of which over 25 we did not have. This was a welcomed gift as all of these will be digitized for the 4-H History Preservation website.

Larry L. Krug, chair

A majority of the specialized national 4-H events have now been drafted. These include:

o 4-H Events, General
o Earliest National Event
o National 4-H Poultry and Egg Conference
o National 4-H Horse Roundup
o Western National Roundup
o National 4-H Livestock Judging Contest
o National Wildlife Habitat ducation Program Contest
o 4-H Forestry Invitational
o National 4-H Engineering Events
o National 4-H Commodity Marketing Symposium
o National 4-H Dairy Conference
o National 4-H Meat Evaluation and Identification Contest
o Automotive Care and Safety Contest
o Space Camp
o National 4-H Shooting Sports Invitational
o National 4-H Congress - Atlanta

These drafts are currently being placed on the the 4-H History website. Since many of them have continued in operation, we will be seeking the input of current coordinators for the contemporary history and additions to any history of the event for the past.

Larry Krug, Chair

The segment on National 4-H Literature Development has now been completed and is up on the National 4-H History section of the 4-H history preservation website.

The area covers the creation of the Educational Aids department in the National 4-H Service Committee (later National 4-H Council), the procedures and volume of production of national literature and audio/visuals from the 1960s through the 1980s which resulted in over 700 different educational aids being produced with volume of sales being in the 10's of millions of copies.

Also included is a table showing the specific production of national literature and audio/visuals by 4-H program area.

Since file copies of less than a half dozen of the 700 nationally produced educational aids have been located, the next large challenge is to locate the most relevant of these items and have them digitized for placement on the history website.

Larry Krug, chair

Writing has not yet started on this section, although materials are being gathered to begin drafting an outline. Well over 500 national educational aids - mostly member manuals, leader guides and slide sets - were created during the 1970s and 1980s, the peak period of 4-H curriculum development, so this will be a major task. Unfortunately, to date few copies of the nationally-produced educational aids, nor reports from the dozens of developmental committees have been located. This particular area is tremendously significant as it is a primary example of the partnering between youth development specialists and subject matter specialists at both the federal and state levels, as well as the strong partnering between the public and private sectors… government and the corporate world.

Larry Krug, Chair