Summertime usually means occupying children by sending them out to summer camps, however with COVID-19, this may not be a viable option. Some organizations have decided to shift their camps to an online platform to keep kids engaged. Weber County 4-H is one of those groups transitioning summer camps to remote learning opportunities.
4-H camps throughout Utah vary in duration, age of camper, and location. But they all share the 4-H’s slogan approach; “learn by doing." In Weber County, the Aggie Adventure Camps are being transitioned to a virtual workshop experience.
Ali Teuscher is a 4-H educator in Weber County. She is helping plan these virtual camp experience. So far… Weber has put on two workshops: Junior Master Gardener and A Wonderful World of Wizards.
“We are hosting them via Zoom," Teuscher said. "And we've put all of them at one to two hours long, just because we know that after being on the computer and looking at the screen, kids may start to check out so, we've limited our timeframe.”
Having these camps and workshops online can pose challenges though. When having remote learning opportunities, Teuscher says it is hard to make sure everyone is muted and not talking out of turn.
“We've had a couple of kids that have gotten kicked off and for some reason, they can't stay on," said Teuscher. "And we've had some that it's a little bit harder to explain everything but when you're in person, a lot of times you can go over and actually, physically help them especially on something that they are struggling with.”
Online platforms have allowed enrolment for these workshops to increase from past years.
