Reaching Greater Heights

This thing called blogging is very new to me, but I am very excited to challenge myself and get plugged into this techno world in order to make awesome connections with others and expand my professional development! If you have any helpful tips for me about blogging, I would greatly appreciate them!

This week I was especially challenged to blog and share my experience as a Agricultural Educator. First off, I should mention that I am working as an intern for the 4H Extension office this summer. For those who are unsure of what 4H is..... well you came to the right place because I would be delighted to tell you! 4H is a youth development program that encourages kids in the ways of Agriculture. This extension program teaches kids a variety of skills and exposes them to the numerous opportunities that agriculture has to offer. Animal science, plant science, environmental science, and ag mechanics, are only a few of the opportunities that kids can get involved with. 4H also encourages the growth of kid's professional and leadership skills. My favorite thing about the 4H educational program is that it strongly believes in learning by doing. This means that the kids aren't sitting behind a desk receiving information but rather getting involved in their learning through hands on activities.The impacting stories I have heard from kids about how 4H has so greatly influenced their lives are incredible. Some of them have brought me to tears and it makes me proud to be a part of this organization that positively influences our future generation.

 This summer so far has been an incredible journey (tis why I tilted this blog "Adventures in Agriculture"). Each day is an adventure. I get the opportunity to go out in the community, meet some pretty awesome people, and share about agriculture. As I mentioned before, this past week especially inspired me to start my blog and share these experiences!

By now you're probably thinking "just tell me already what was so awesome that you did this past week!" Well I am about to break the suspense! So this past week our group of 4H educators started up our summer urban agricultural education program. In other words, we brought agriculture to the city. Each week a group of students belonging to a summer school program come to our garden in the city and tend to it. This was the first week, so we started by simply pulling weeds, watering, cleaning up, and even picking some of the vegetables that we had previously planted. There are currently three garden plots with a variety of vegetables in each. There is an almost finished greenhouse and they are working on putting together a water barrel irrigation system! There are also a few raised bed gardens which are designed for students in wheelchairs in order to create an equal learning environment for every student. There are some really awesome things happening here and I am excited to see what the rest of the summer has in store for us!

I almost forget my absolute favorite part about this garden center! While we were there this past week a group of contractors stopped in to discuss "business." I wasn't sure why they were there until I asked the director what they were discussing. I discovered that they were planning on pouring a concrete pad for the start of the center's outdoor classroom! It will be set up just like a regular classroom but with no walls. Currently the students walk a few blocks from the school to get to the garden. Not only will it be more convenient for the students to get to, but more importantly it will give instructors the opportunity to hold lessons outside, right beside the garden. Teachers can utilize this space to conduct workshops and maximize their teaching abilities in new environments. Everybody was over joyed at the advances that were being made. Seeing agriculture impacting people in unlikely places was most definitely the highlight of my day!

Here are a few pictures to start out with but I promise better ones are coming :)