What is Invention Convention
In today’s rapidly changing world, proficiency in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) matters more than ever. Yet, as important as STEM may be, business decision-makers, government leaders and educators are realizing that students’ future success may depend on learning something more.
Together with STEM learning or on its own, Invention Education empowers young people to develop the skills and self-confidence they need to identify and solve real-world problems and make informed choices about their future careers.
For students as well as society, the outcomes of this kind of education can be game-changing.
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Invention Education activates STEM and other skills and empowers young people to develop complementary empathetic problem-identification, problem-solving, and creativity skills so they can create their own solutions to real-world problems. Invention Education empowers young people to develop the skills and self-confidence they need to identify and solve real-world problems and to make informed choices about their future careers. |
Values
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Indiana 4-H and Invention Convention Worldwide both encourage young inventors to explore ideas based on their own life experiences, empower them to develop real inventions and market-worthy business innovations, and expose them to real-world audiences, including noted innovators and business leaders. |
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Indiana 4-H and Invention Convention Worldwide emphasizes immersive experiences that are hands-on, active, and direct, with the aim of preparing young people to be part of a can-do culture. |
Indiana 4-H and Invention Convention Worldwide bring together learners, educators, and others from many places and backgrounds, fostering conversations and collaborations among learners, educators, parents, organizations, and policymakers statewide as well as worldwide.
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Hands-On Experiences |
Youth can apply their skills from other programs and projects, including robotics, making, coding, science, agriculture, and art allowing them to solve problems in their own world in an unstructured, real-world way. |
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Building a Can-Do Culture |
We empower project-based learning as each youth develops the skills, mindset, and intrinsic motivation while engaging in hands-on learning surrounded by other young inventors doing the same thing. This establishes the idea that a can-do culture is normal, possible, preferred, and expected in learning and growing. |
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21st-Century Experiences |
Indiana 4-H and Invention Convention Worldwide builds 21st-century skills. Students apply these skills practically in project-based learning to understand the effect their actions have on outcomes. With effective communication and execution, students further understand how they can affect others for the benefit of all. Detail: 21st-century skills include critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, information literacy, adaptability, leadership, initiative, and productivity. |
Features
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Indiana 4-H and Invention Convention Worldwide are committed to making Invention Education accessible and applicable to all. Any youth can participate in Invention Convention programs. |
Youth themselves choose the problems they want to solve, often driven by their passion or personal interest. They drive the process of their invention.
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At the start of the Invention Convention, youth practice how to identify problems and keep a log of the problems they observe around them. They can pursue these activities at home, at school, among their friends, and even through the news. Students focus on a problem that matters most to them. |
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They are highly empathetic and choose problems in their immediate family or pressing the world around them. Students can choose to solve for their grandmother who can’t reach items on her shelves, for their friend who can’t hear a speaker from the back of the auditorium, or for drought-plagued countries where water solutions are needed. |
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Youth take responsibility for identifying the problems they will solve to help ensure that the effort becomes truly student-led. To fully scope the gravity of a problem, students are prompted to seek first to understand the problem, whom it affects and how, and any additional factors that might shape it. This effort leads youth on a problem-solving quest to engage with trained teachers, corporate and community mentors, student peers, engaged family members, and inventors and entrepreneurs who share their own wisdom and experience. Through their discovery efforts, they come to understand the extent to which their solution is original as well as the ways in which their idea differs from existing solutions.
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Indiana 4-H and Invention Convention Worldwide offer flexible experiential learning in class, after school, through partner programs, and in camps as well as other venues and formats. Explore the Invention Convention curriculum on The Henry Ford's inHub platform.
Indiana 4-H and Invention Convention Worldwide host competitions through which student inventors can showcase their inventions and receive feedback on their projects. Student inventors present their prototypes, display boards, and inventor logbooks and give a live pitch to expert judges. Review the Indiana 4-H Invention Convention rubric.
Tell us about your invention program!
Please let us know more about your upcoming Invention Convention program. We will use the collected data to allocate spots to different organizations in Indiana for the 2025 statewide Indiana 4-H Invention Convention competition, determine how many student inventors from Indiana will be able to advance to the RTX Invention Convention U.S. Nationals, and guide planning for future professional development opportunities. Program facilitators must submit this form by December 15, 2024, to be eligible to advance students to the 2025 statewide competition in Indiana.
Indiana 4-H Invention Convention Program Implementation FormGet involved with Indiana 4-H Invention Convention!
Are you interested in starting an Invention Convention program in your community or volunteering with the Indiana 4-H Invention Convention program? Please fill out this interest form to get more information about our program and join our mailing list.
Indiana 4-H Invention Convention Interest Form