Current Projects

Spring projects were announced at our January 13, 2025 club meeting.  If you have any questions, please email admin@emeryville4h.club.

New for Spring:

• Creative Writing Workshops for our Literary Magazine or your personal growth
• Club Social:  Ceramic Workshop at Berkeley Art Studio
• Valentine’s Workshop
• Art School of Rock
• Prepare, Practice, Present!
• Lego City
• Food for Thought 4-H STEM Challenge
• Fabric Dyeing: Shibori and Leaf Eco-Printing
• All’s Fair!  Creative Arts Workshop
• Nature Art
• Soil, Sunshine and Succulents
• Leathercraft (tentative)

We’ll take 3 Walks into the past! The October walk will be from the Julia Morgan- designed Chapel of the Chimes Columbarium through the elegant Mountainview historic cemetery in Oakland. In time for Halloween, we’ll learn about local historic figures interred there. In November we’ll explore the Rosie the Riveter museum and WWII Home Front National Historic Park to learn about the war effort, and significant social changes and cultural shifts necessitated by the war. We’ll enjoy beautiful marina views from Richmond. Lastly, in December we’ll head out from Encinal Beach in Alameda to walk past harbor seals, the USS Hornet, to the Seaplane Lagoon, once a site of flying boats.

The Tech Challenge is a program sponsored by The Tech: https://www.thetech.org/education/tech-challenge/ in San Jose for teams to develop engineering skills. The program is meant to inspire students through this hands-ons experience with the engineering design process: brainstorm, build, test, document and have fun creating their solutions.

Each year the intrepid Tech Challenge teams take on a new challenge that relates to a real world problem. Past challenges focused on water conservation, repairing a satellite, and building structures to withstand earthquakes, wind storms and more.   The team will demonstrate their device to judges during the Final Showcase on May 3 & 4, 2025.

The 2025 Scenario:  There are many ways to get from here to there and back again. Some vehicles are powered by gasoline, electricity, hydrogen or even solar. In this year’s Challenge, teams will use gravity to power their devices. Is your team ready to build a vehicle that can go the distance and document your journey?

The 2025 Challenge: Build a device that uses the power of gravity to traverse multiple tracks.

This is a creative writing and leadership project just for Intermediates. You’ll be the editorial staff for our club’s literary magazine, making decisions from what we’ll name it, to how we want to go about seeking submissions from others in E4-H, to which submissions we’ll include and in what format. We’ll do some writing of our own each session, too, from a variety of playful prompts and wordy challenges. All creative writing levels welcome, from I’ve-never-done-any, to I’ve-been-a-poet-since-preschool. If you like to be creative and enjoy working with a team to make something meaningful and satisfying happen, please join us for this project as we learn from each other and have lots of fun along the way.

Cloverbuds are such a special part of Emeryville 4-H! This year, our sessions will focus on two themes:

(a) Providing age-adjusted versions of a few club projects that are available only to older club members. We’ll account for safety, skill level, and attention span in offering our Cloverbuds “mini” versions of some popular club projects. For example: Can’t sign up for Creative Writing because you’re not old enough yet? Don’t worry! We will have a Cloverbuds session where we make our own stories and poems together.

(b) Exploring the general themes of 4-H and Cloverbuds, including Civic Engagement, Leadership, Healthy Living, STEM, and, of course, the 4 Hs: Head, Heart, Hands, and Health. We’ll be working in nature and making things wherever we can, and building up our little community of friends is always top priority.

In-person, 3 sessions (2 hr each), to learn basic personal health emergency prevention and response: site safety assessment, when/how to call 911, both physical and psychological first aid, when/how to access CPR and/or a defibrilator, basic initial wound care, start to recognize broken/unstable bones/joints, head injury/loss of consciousness, and exposure (heat/cold) injury/illness. Hands on practice will focus on initial basic first aid and initial emergency response/activation using both city/school and outdoor/hiking scenarios.

70% of the Earth is ocean, yet only 5% of it has been explored. That means there’s a whole watery world out there waiting for us! In this 4-H STEM challenge, we’ll dive into ocean exploration, the technology behind it, and why it’s important. Come join us as an explorer of the deep!

First meeting: 90 minutes
– We’ll be using the Explorers of the Deep kit to prepare our own ocean “robots”, test different “ballasts” (materials that change how the robot sinks and floats), and collect data from our ocean exploration.

Second meeting: 90 minutes
– We’ll play a board game in which we navigate our ocean “robot” around the world and learn about different ocean concepts.
– We’ll briefly learn about different problems in our ocean through a card matching game.

Third meeting: 2-3 hours
– We’ll go on a field trip to the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in San Francisco to understand why learning about the ocean is important in real life.  We’ll be participating in their plankton workshop.

Come cook with us! The whole family can get involved in this fun activity. Sessions may have a “cultural or special food” theme and some will be led by teen leaders. Ingredient lists and prep instructions will be sent out a week in advance. The leader may explain the significance of the savory or sweet food and will demonstrate how to make it, and we will all follow along and make it too. This will be a great way to expand your culinary repertoire and have fun!

In this project, we’ll enter the world of Pokémon to learn the basics of collecting and trading cards, battling, and playing the Pokémon board game together. Whether you are new to Pokémon or already love the fictional world of these creatures and their friends, you’re welcome to join the fun.

Have you ever wanted to learn to juggle? Or roll? Or walk around upside down? Then this project is for you! We will be exploring the basics of juggling and moving using the plasticity of the brain. Each one and a half hour long session will start with an engaging warm-up that will morph into multiple stations, including juggling, movement, plate spinning, and so many other interesting things. This project will be hosted outside at Dover Park, so on the fun scale, the sky is the limit!

SESSION 1: Candle making with Susan – We will be making candles with soy wax and orange rinds from my juice stand. Each participant will make 4-6 candles and a gift bag and card (even if you want to keep the candles for yourself!).

SESSION 2: Wreath making with Anelise – In-person hands-on workshop to learn to make a festive wreath with fresh green clippings, dried twigs/branches and colourful decor elements. You will receive a wire or willow branch frame on which to build your own wreath, and there will be a variety of foraged green leaves to choose from. We will be working in my garage and spilling over onto sidewalk.

Are you interested in developing your home apothecary? Have you been meaning to start brewing your own kombucha, making your own lotion, and curing what ails you with herbs from your kitchen? Then this is the project for you! Join us to learn about good “bugs” like the SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) that is used to make the delicious effervescent drink known as kombucha. Learn how to “brew” your own herbal tea infusions with different readily-available herbs that can help support your immune and nervous systems. Gain skills to make your own specialized “balms” for all your loved ones this holiday season!

Join us for some fun rides on paved and unpaved roads:

Point Pinole
Inspiration Point Mountain Biking Ride
Novato Bike Park (here’s a short video of the course: IMG_0782