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Idaho Enterprise

4-H Spring Break a Big Success

Lucky Charms Bunny Club with presenter Katy Maughan kicked off 4-H Spring Break in perfect Easter fashion!

Over the course of last week’s Spring Break, the 4-H Program and Agricultural Extension Office hosted a multiday series of events full of education, entertainment, and practical skill building.  Over the course of the Spring Break week, many interested students attended demonstrations and classes on topics such as preparing a 4-H Demonstration, Learning Roping Skills, Exploring STEM activities, exploring Rangeland issues, Using ultrasound technology in animal marketing strategies, and Raising bunnies.  A craft project with Chris Jensen from Daisy Hollow was also featured.

Kristal Ford, award-winning 4-H Demonstrator at last year’s Eastern Idaho State Fair, presented an informative and interesting slideshow on how to create a 4-H Demonstration, and what kinds of things the judges look for in such a presentation.  Ford walked the attendees through the process from topic selection to in-person presentation techniques.  

While Ford herself has always had a fascination with animal anatomy and physiology (her Demonstration last year, for instance, was on the digestive systems of horses), she emphasized that a whole range of topics are possible, and as she stated “you have to really care about your topic to do a good presentation on it.”  Some possibilities she mentioned included color patterns of horses, dog grooming techniques, types of crochet yarn, bridles, how to show sheep, and others.  “Basically, anything that you are really interested in.”

After discussing good topic selection, Kristal went through the parts of the Demonstration, from the introduction (“which should definitely be catchy—that’s something the judges look for”), to the body of the presentation (“which needs to be organized in a clear way, and supported with good information”), to the conclusion and references.  Ford advised students to have a “plan to engage with the audience,” which very well might include “some physical or visual object to keep attention.”  She also advised speakers to be confident and know their material well.

She summarized what judges are looking for is an interesting topic, a catchy introduction, clearly organized steps, and good audience engagement.

Following the presentation, Sawyer Fonnesbeck added his own experience to the discussion, and students were able to examine large presentation material kits with information pertaining to their individual livestock animals.

Most of those present who answered the question “Why do you want to do a Livestock Demonstration?” answered with a version of the idea that they enjoyed talking and sharing their interests with others, with Ford and Fonnesbeck acknowledged were the perfect motivations.

Later in the week, Justin Hatch and others brought in a number of roping dummies, in order to give students practice with the principles of roping.  Some had quite a bit of experience and took to it like old hands, while some of those newest to the sport had a rocky start.  By the end of the afternoon, though, everyone was roping like a pro.

Matt Fisher presented a STEM activity which involved the construction of a model Mars Rover.  After the students worked to build as assemble their own unique rovers, they worked at designing a course to run them through in order to put into practice the engineering problem-solving concepts that the activity focused on.  “It’s not just model building,” Fisher said.  “That’s not enough.  We need them to think about how these kinds of devices can be used to do a variety of tasks.”

A temporary tent with Rangeland sticker books was also on site, where Azul Chavez helped students with a variety of tasks to collect a full book of stickers on Rangelands.

For the final event, Scott Nash brought in an ultrasound device, which he demonstrated live with a couple of volunteer sheep.  The sheep remained generally good-natured as Nash explained how the ultrasound device worked, what kinds of information it could provide, and the benefit to using ultrasound information as a way to determine market strategies for livestock.  “In addition to using this for pregnancy testing, disease diagnostics, this is also used for finding out carcass traits—back fat depths, loin size, marbling—you name it.”

Nash discussed the general ranges for fat in different parts of different animals, and used the machine in retail to evaluate the sheep in question.  

As with last year, this year’s 4-H Spring Break was an excellent chance for students to learn more about some of the issues relevant to their 4-H learning, explore new topics they might wish to pursue, and spend some time with their friends and peers in the process.  “It’s been great!” Kelly Sorensen of the Extension Office said.  “A wonderful week.  And we definitely plan for an even bigger one next year.”