• By April W Bowman
• Posted Friday, April 23, 2021

4-H Presentations, Public Speaking, and Outdoor Cookery

4-H Presentations are a 6-12 minute speech. A presentation actually uses props to help tell their story. The subject for your presentation can be on more than 30 different topics from aardvarks to Zoology. A public speech is a type of presentation, but you are not allowed to use any props (other than notecards). For 2021, presentations will be recorded and submitted digitally as a single cut (no splicing). The good news is that we should be able to record those at our office for you if needed, or we can schedule a Zoom meeting with you and record that Zoom on our NCSU cloud system. The video or your presentation and registration will be due by May 10 using this Google Form. Please complete your registration using a Gmail account if at all possible. You will also have the option to upload a copy of your slides (as a pdf), or photos of your display board, etc.

Youth that are selected as a county winner in presentations will advance to district and may edit/improve their speech, and re-record their video to be submitted for district judging by May 24! Similarly, youth selected as district winners may improve their presentations and re-submit their video by July 1 for State.

New categories this year include Agricultural Safety & Health, and Digital Reality.

Outdoor cookery is considered a 4-H presentation so youth must choose to do either a presentation or outdoor cookery, but not both. Outdoor cookery competition will take place in person at the district level on Friday, June 18 at South Stokes High School. If we do not have more than two youth per age category, per category (beef, chicken, pork, turkey and new this year seafood), we will NOT have a county competition, BUT would love to schedule a time to practice your cookery presentation. Youth should provide their own portable charcoal grill for this event, but we do have some small ones available at the office. Contact us to reserve yours. Note: this competition is the same day as the district dairy show. You must still ENTER this competition by May 10 but you do NOT have to submit a video. Additionally, this category does NOT require an oral prepared presentation at district, but does require a place setting with table decorations.

Read about the categories, rules, access the score sheets and more at https://nc4h.ces.ncsu.edu/youth-3/4-h-awards-incentives-programs-2/presentations/. Scroll down for a fact sheet, and helpful hints for videoing presentations.

For more information, email, April Bowman, Extension Agent, Livestock, Forages, and 4-H Youth Development at awbowman@ncsu.edu or call 336-703-2855 or Dr. Monique Pearce-Brady, Extension Agent, 4-H Youth Development at dmpearc3@ncsu.edu or call 336-703-2856.