Mower County Enterprise 4-H members joined hundreds of thousands of youth across the world in leading the eighth annual 4-H National Youth Science Day (4-H NYSD) experiment.

This year’s experiment, called “Motion Commotion,” combined a speeding car collision and a distracted driving demonstration in a simulated activity that investigated the physical and human factors of motion.

Enterprise 4-H youth conducted the two-part “Motion Commotion” experiment on Oct. 11 at the Mower County 4-H building, where they used every day materials — including a toy car, modeling clay, ruler, calculator and cell phone — to explore physics in the real-world.

In the first phase, youth constructed a simulated runway to analyze the speed, momentum and kinetic energy of a car in motion, and explored the science behind the car’s collisions. In the second phase, they led an experiment that used the same physics principles to demonstrate the consequences of distracted driving.

4-H NYSD is the world’s largest, youth-led science experiment. The national rallying event for 4-H Science, 4-H NYSD is an interactive learning experience that gets youth excited about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and spotlights the many ways Mower County youth are engaging in 4-H Science programs year-round.

“The kids worked in teams to conduct the experiment and enjoyed both the collisions and reaction time challenges,” said Enterprise 4-H leader Kaye Hansen in a press release.

Oregon State University Cooperative Extension designed the 2015 activity in partnership with Vernier Software & Technology and selected as the winning experiment for the eighth annual 4-H NYSD.

In addition to Enterprise 4-H, hundreds of local events took place nationwide. The national 4-H Council hosted the flagship national event, with hundreds of youth participating in the experiment on Oct. 7 in Washington, D.C. The national sponsors of 2015 4-H NYSD are Hughes (HughesNet satellite Internet), Lockheed Martin and U.S. Cellular.