New Brunswick Youth to Attend Rutgers 4-H Soil Summit

Eleven students from Greater Brunswick Charter School will join more than 100 youth in grades 6-8 from throughout the state at the New Jersey 4-H Science of Soil Youth Summit, to be held on January 29 at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.

The Soil Summit is the conclusion to a six-week after-school enrichment program led at Greater Brunswick Charter School, in collaboration with Rutgers 4-H Youth Development. Program Associate Laura Eppinger met with this group once every Wednesday from October-December 2015 to teach soil sampling, data collection, composting, and the ways that the water cycle impacts soil health.

The purpose of the January 29 program is to provide young people with the opportunity to interact with soil scientists to develop a deeper understanding of soil health, compare soil data, and identify soil issues and possible solutions in their local communities.

New Jersey is known as the Garden State with over 730,000 acres of land farmed. However, NJ is also known as the most densely populated state in the nation, which creates challenges to our balance between people, nature and land use. Soil is the foundation for life. It acts as a filter to protect the quality of water, air, and supports growth of plants and animals.

Prior to attending the Soil Summit teams collected and recorded soil data doing site assessments of their local soils. Youth shared their data using a 4-H Soil Science App and compared their results with teams across the state.

While at the 4-H Science of Soil Youth Summit, teams comprised of 6-8 youth and 1-2 adult advisors per school will join faculty, staff, and educators from Rutgers Cooperative Extension and the Soil Conservation District on the Rutgers University Cook/Douglass Campus to discuss soil science research and gain exposure to career and research opportunities in soil science related sciences. Youth will participate in a series of hands-on activities to enrich their knowledge and understanding of soil science and learn about the characteristics of healthy soil. In addition, teams will present posters highlighting the soil data they collected from their communities.

This program was funded through a grant from the State Farm Youth Advisory Board. For more information about the New Jersey 4-H Science of Soil Youth Summit visit: http://4hset.rutgers.edu/soilsummit/.

The 4-H Youth Development Program is part of Rutgers Cooperative Extension, a unit of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. 4-H educational programs are offered to all youth, grades K-13(one year out of high school), on an age-appropriate basis, without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, disability, atypical hereditary cellular or blood trait, marital status, domestic partnership status, military service, veteran status and any other category protected by law. For more information about the New Jersey 4-H Program, administered by Rutgers Cooperative Extension visit the website at http://nj4h.rutgers.edu