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Impact Report

For plan Expanded 4-H & School Enrichment(Santa Fe County)
Date October 29, 2010, 4:12 am
For Objective Medium-term Show medium-term objectives
Impact Report The chick embryology project is among the favorites of teachers for school enrichment projects in Santa Fe County. As spring approached schools from across the county were targeted to conduct this project in the classrooms. The response was overwhelming and materials for the 21 day project were booked solid for the several weeks. The Chick Embryology project includes approximately four lessons to be delivered throughout the duration of the project. Eggs are placed in incubators and educational display boards as well as supplementary handouts are placed at each site. During routine visits, the 4-H agent candles the eggs and listens to heart beats with the students as well as discusses the developmental stages of the embryo. The agent conducted the project in grades ranging from kindergarten through sixth grade. This included four first grade classrooms that were “spanish speaking only”. The agent also conducted the project in one private school that had never before used 4-H curriculum. The satisfaction of this project by both teachers as well as students was overwhelming. Students received a pre and post test to measure their knowledge gained throughout the project. Students were asked to define basic embryology terms, and basic egg anatomy. The results of this evaluation showed that there was an overall increase in knowledge of 31%. Teachers also received an evaluation asking them to describe their satisfaction with the project. Teacher evaluations showed extremely high satisfaction with the curriculum. The demand for the Chick Embryology project has become so overwhelming that the agent developed a kit that can be checked out by the teachers to use without the assistance of the agent. The agent developed a Chick Embryology notebook which contains detailed lessons plans, instructions on using an incubator, egg anatomy, egg candling, developing embryos, and supplemental activities to use with students. Each kit also includes the incubator, egg candler, display board, stethoscope, posters, and fertilized eggs. The agent trains the teachers on how to use their kits and provides pre and post tests for both students and teachers. The kits were very successful and allowed the agent to reach more students and teachers. It also allowed the agent to have more direct contact with teachers. By allowing the teachers to conduct the lessons themselves, the agent noticed that more supplemental activities were taking place in the classroom. Teachers took more ownership of the project and began to provide more materials to their students. This year 222 students from eight different classrooms completed the project. Two years ago the Agriculture Agents in Santa Fe County began to focus on youth water education. Upon completion of a successful program in collaboration with the Children’s Water Festival the agents submitted a grant proposal to the Southern Regional Water Coordination Project. The grant was awarded and the project, entitled "Water Ripples" received $12,000 to develop a youth water curriculum. The agents have worked collaboratively with New Mexico State University, Louisiana State University, and University of Kentucky to develop both a computer based curriculum to be delivered to students throughout the 13 state southern region. The original goals of The Water Ripples project included developing youth water education materials designed for interactive ‘fun-time’ learning. These materials were to include interactive educational games for age groups ranging 4th to 6th grade. Materials would be designed for standalone instruction as a packaged presentation for young audiences. Popular game formats such as Jeopardy would be used to facilitate learning about water. Games would introduce students to various concepts that can be adopted for a particular setting, e.g. rural or urban. Playing the games would help students understand relationships of cause and effect in protecting water resources. Each response, correct or incorrect, would provide additional information to enhance knowledge gained. The ultimate benefits of these program materials would be to increase understanding of water quality protection and conservation. The agent developed four interactive games with four categories in each game were developed. The games are entitled “H2OME Use”, Astounding Agriculture, Water Science 101, and “Let’s Get Growing”. The agent collected relevant water concepts and converted them into a multiple choice question format for students to answer. Along with each question went basics facts and illustrations that further emphasized each concept. Each game is designed in an electronic format for use in LED projection, much the same as large screen television. This capability will allow broader viewing for group team interaction. Approximately two hours of instructional ‘game playing’ is available from the entire package. The agent completed work on the Water Ripples game and is currently working with the River Exchange Program to provide water education to 5th grade students throughout Santa Fe County. The agent is using Water Ripples to emphasize the importance of water as it relates to agriculture. The agent will be delivering hands on water education throughout the upcoming school year. Kid & Kows & More is an educational program designed to teach youth about where food and fiber comes from and for them to understand the importance of agriculture to their local communities. This program was once again offered to 500 fourth grade students from the Santa Fe area elementary schools as well as to 500 fourth grade students from the southern Santa Fe County and Torrance County elementary schools. The Agents secured funding to offset the cost of transporting the youth to the Santa Fe County Fair Grounds and the Moriarty Civic Center where the educational programs were conducted. The youth were rotated through the various stations where they learned about vegetables production and marketing, field crops, ranching, water quality and conservation, bees and apple production, and the dairy and sheep industry. The program information was presented by representatives from various organizations including, Cooperative Extension Service, New Mexico Beef Council, New Mexico Apple Council, Edgewood Soil and Water Conservation District, Farm to Table, Santa Fe County 4-H Council, and the Southwest Dairy Producers. This year 382 participants were reached at the Santa Fe site and 478 participants were reached at the Moriarty site. This past year the agent worked on an “Ag in the Classroom” package curriculum that could be delivered in a classroom through a series of lessons. The project entitled “Agriculture for Life” is broken into four different units; Livestock, Plant Production, Agriculture Bi-products, and Natural Resources. The intent of this project is to introduce classrooms to a broad idea of what agriculture means to them on a daily basis. The agent developed and delivered hands-on lessons that include science based experiments, arts and crafts projects, children’s literature, and food preparation. The agent was able to deliver portions of this package to 81 students in three different classrooms from two school districts throughout the school year. In response to some of the emerging issues in our environment, the agent also focused a portion of the lessons on renewable energy such as solar, hydro-energy and wind power. The agent plans to continue work on the project and has developed promotional brochures that have gone out to teachers to help promote the project.