County Events Day! How do I pick a topic for a Demonstration or Illustrated Talk?

Another excellent question.  That one comes in from a young man in our Archery Project.

The first thing to remember is that your visual presentation whether an Demonstration or Illustrated talk comes from the project you are enrolled in during this 4-H program year.  And you certainly don't have to decide between whether your visual presentation is a demo or talk.  That is just something for your benefit to help you organize your thoughts.

So first look at your project area.  Let me think of something general enough that everyone can relate.  For an example lets say a member is registered and working through a project on Safety this year.

Take a big piece of paper and make a column on the left.  Write 4-H Project as a header and then below it write safety.  Move over one space and write General Topic area.  Under this write all the things that come to mind that you may have been studying about safety.  For example in this brain storming list you might have:  Fire, Camping, Children, Lawn Mower, Automobile, Poisons, Animals, Helmet, ATV, Bike. The list can go on an on.

PROJECT           GENERAL TOPIC
  Safety                     Fire
                                 Camping
                                 Children
                                 Lawn Mower
                                 Automobile
                                 Helmet

The first rule is PICK SOMETHING THAT INTERESTS YOU!!!!

So in our example maybe our person is thinking about driving someday and picks Automobile Safety

Move over a column and title it "Specific Areas".  Now brainstorm a list of all the possible Automobile Safety Topics that come to mind.  Remember in Brainstorming you write anything that comes to mind down on the paper.  You might have things like:  Insurance, Alcohol & Drugs, Seat Belts, Changing Tires, Safety Features, Air Bags, Safe Driving Skills and on and one again.

PROJECT           GENERAL TOPIC             SPECIFIC AREAS

  Safety                      Fire                                     Insurance

                                 Camping                              Alcohol & Drugs

                                 Children                               Seat Belts

                                 Lawn Mower                       Changing Tires

                                 Automobile

                                 Helmet

Well our person in this example picked SEAT BELTS

So the last column title "Breakdown of One Area"  Now you might think about Seat Belts and come up with:  Demonstrate with Dummies; Types of injuries they prevent; seat belt laws; kinds of seat belts; how they operate.

PROJECT   GENERAL TOPIC    SPECIFIC AREAS     BREAKDOWN ONE AREA

  Safety              Fire                          Insurance                    Demonstrate with Dummies

                         Camping                  Alcohol & Drugs         Types of injuries prevented

                         Children                   Seat Belts                   Seat belt laws

                         Lawn Mower           Changing Tires            Kinds of seat belts

                         Automobile

                         Helmet

Now you have some clear specific things to work into your presentation.  See how that works?