The Pennsylvania 4-H Web site (pa4h.cas.psu.edu/pa4hhome.html) offers extensive information on Pennsylvania 4-H, including its purpose, membership rules, clubs and activities, events, and publications. Visitors can find local contacts in every Pennsylvania county and send e-mail to Penn State 4-H faculty and staff.

Visitors also can obtain educational materials in subject areas such as science and technology; animal sciences; diversity; communications and arts; citizenship and leadership; healthy lifestyles; and consumer science.

Patti Fantaske, who manages the site, says it is always changing in response to the needs of visitors. “More information goes on almost daily,” she says, “so we have to create new ways for people to find the information they want. The goal is to make it a better form of communication.”

Volunteer leaders and extension agents use the site to find materials and news, and send requests to 4-H faculty members at the University Park campus. “They also can get resources, project publications, and critical information online,” Fantaske says. “For instance, when rules for showing animals change, we get a flurry of questions, so we put the information online so parents and agents can get it immediately.”

The site has also brought new faces to 4-H. Many parents and children happen upon the site while searching the Internet for topics ranging from raising chickens to woodworking. “Many see our materials online, appreciate the quality, and realize that they can enroll their child in their local 4-H,” Fantaske says.

—Gary Abdullah