Service Projects and Physics: Community Central
Portland
The Portland High School 4-H club, including members of CYFAR Community Central, spent January conducting their winter service learning project. The club members planned two meals for 50 people at the Ronald McDonald House in Portland, Maine. The House is a place for family members whose children are patients at the Maine Medical Center. Volunteers cook the families a homemade meal each night so that they don’t have to eat out at expensive restaurants.
The 4-H Club members planned two different meals then they purchased the food and prepared the meals. The first meal was a delicious Rice Biryani dish with fruit salad and vegetables. The second meal was a Chicken Pesto Pasta with cooked carrots, garlic bread, and brownies.
While conducting the service project, the teens learned about planning a healthy meal for people they didn’t know. The teens considered how families who were stressed and worried might want comfort food that was still healthy. The teens also had to consider meals that could be refrigerated for later use. The teens toured the Ronald McDonald House and learned the various reasons children in Maine might have a prolonged visit to a hospital.
Lewiston
Third-graders at McMahon Elementary in Lewiston have started learning about Force & Motion. So far, students have used dominos to explore potential and kinetic energy. Over the next couple of months, these third-graders will start looking at speed and friction, projectile physics with catapults, magnetism, and more!
One domino can knock over another domino one and a half times its size!
You can follow Community Central on our 4-H Community Central Facebook page and find out more about the program on the Maine 4-H Community Central page.
This material is based upon the work of 4-H Community Central Maine, a project supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, United States (U.S.) Department of Agriculture, through a cooperative agreement with The University of Maine under award number 2014-41520-22235
General information about the CYFAR grant program can be accessed on the
Children, Youth and Families at Risk (CYFAR) page (USDA website).
For further information about the CYFAR-funded project highlighted in this publication, contact:
CYFAR Project Name: 4-H Community Central Maine
Principal Investigator: Kristy L. Ouellette
Email Address: kristy.ouellette@maine.edu
Website: 4-H Community Central