Final Day of the Internship

Today is the last day of my internship. What a busy summer it has been! Summer camp, 4-H State Congress, the Albemarle County Fair, workshops, Main Street Ag Day meetings...the list goes on and on. I have had the opportunity  to meet so many wonderful people this summer! Whether it was community projects, summer camp, the fair, or summer workshops, I was able to meet so many wonderful children and adults in Charlottesville/Albemarle. I have learned more about 4-H from the adult side of events instead of the youth side. I spent years in 4-H and was very involved in different clubs and events however when you are the one planning, buying supplies for, and running an event it is VERY different than being the participant. I was lucky enough to have help from many awesome people around the office. Karrin has helped me with so much this summer and I have learned a lot just from watching what all she does. Whether it is just learning from her organizational skills or figuring out that all camp preparation can be completed 3 days before summer camp begins...I have learned what all a 4-H agent does during the summer and how passionate an agent has to be about 4-H to devote almost all their time to 4-H. I'm sure this school year will be just as great as the summer was!
I have been lucky enough to have another intern around the office this summer which was a lot of fun! Morgan was the FCS/ANR intern and we had the opportunity to work together for a few projects this summer and I had a lot of fun getting to know her!
This summer I really enjoyed working in the office with Nancy, Ian, Cat, Kathy, Karrin, Carrie, Alicia, Ellie, and the many master gardeners that came in each week. Not only was I able to see how an extension office runs, I was able to see people work together to make every event possible. The diverse topics that Virginia Cooperative Extension offers knowledge, help, and advice in is amazing and VCE is such an awesome resource to have statewide. I did an internship last summer with VCE in Greene County and between the two summers I have spent involved in 4-H I have realized how rewarding being a 4-H agent can be. Sure, it is stressful at times, but the number of children's lives you impact and help learn about farming, nutrition, life skills, public speaking, and so much more is awesome. Children look up to 4-H agents and I can't wait to see if one day I will have to opportunity to become a 4-H agent and impact children's lives just as I've seen every other 4-H agent do. This summer has been AWESOME! :)

Most of our awesome office staff! :)

Recycled Arts and Crafts Workshop for 9-13 Year Olds

Today we had another recycled arts and crafts workshops scheduled, but we had a low number of people sign up and ended up not having anyone show up for it. I had planned some pretty cool activities for it, one of which was turning an old t-shirt into a cool little bag. Since plans changed, I had time to do a few other things that I need to get done before my internship is over, which is in a few days. Morgan, the other intern and I updated the 4-H bulletin board and took some old pictures off the wall. I also cleaned out the cabinet that I had organized at the beginning of the internship and destroyed throughout the summer as I grabbed stuff for workshops out of it. It was a pretty relaxing but a productive day!

Albemarle County Fair 2014

The Albemarle County Fair has come and gone! So much planning, so many contacts, so much organizing...but the fair went SO well! I was very impressed with how smoothly the whole 3 days of the fair went! We set up cages and the ring and pens on Wednesday, animals and people arrived Thursday, then Thursday evening, Friday, and Saturday were spent having fun, showing animals, selling animals, riding rides, and eating at the fair! All the 4-Hers who showed animals did a GREAT job and were all very excited to receive ribbons for their projects. We had some awesome judges, good lookin' animals, and great people in our 4-H exhibit tent all weekend! We had a large number of animals including poultry, rabbits, lambs, hogs, goats, and a steer. All did well in the show and those who sold did great in the sale! I am from Rockingham County so seeing the difference in the show and sale between Rockingham and Albemarle was fun. Sale prices here are AWESOME! I am so excited for the opportunities these buyers are giving the 4-Hers they support. Dakota Pullaro surpassed his goal of reaching $50,000 from selling animals at the Albemarle County Fair over the last 11 years. That blew me away! What an awesome goal to meet! Many other 4-Hers found success in the sale this year as well. Thank you buyers! You are making a difference in the lives of these 4-Hers! Each 4-H member who was showing also received a feed bucket, water bottle, shirt, and 4-H decal thanks to fundraisers, donations, and local businesses and support. I feel like the fair was a success overall and everyone had fun! I will definitely be back next year to see how the fair goes! I am happy I got to be a part of the behind the scenes work and effort that went into planning the fair!

Check back for pictures! :)

Cloverbud Recycled Arts and Crafts Workshop

On Tuesday, July 29th, I hosted a recycled arts and crafts workshop for cloverbuds at the extension office. We had 6 cloverbuds show up and had a great workshop! We made rock pets, puppets, a button clover, straw necklaces, and more! We all had a lot of fun and enjoyed the 6 hour workshop. After lunch we went outside and played Simon Says for a little while to get rid of some of our energy then went inside and got back to work. Each child got to take home multiple crafts they made and even put on a puppet show for their parents before they left.

STEM Workshop

Yesterday we had a successful STEM workshop with 9-13 year olds. We had 8 kids show up and participate in the workshop. We started the day with Dancing mothballs which we had fun watching bounce up and down in a liquid solution. After that we made thermometers with water, rubbing alcohol, and food coloring. Following the thermometers, we made drawbots. Our drawbots were made out of styrofoam cups, wire, a small motor, a push button, a battery pack, a penny, and washable markers. The children worked in pairs and designed their robots cup with different colors then we began attaching the motor, push button, battery pack, wires, and electrical tape in the correct places. We then attached markers around the base and used a white tablecloth and turned on all of our drawbots on at the same time and let them draw all over the tablecloth. It was awesome! Random items that we attached created a robot that could draw!
We took a break for lunch and watched some Bill Nye the Science Guy while we ate. Following lunch we made ice cream in a bag. This was a good dessert surprise after lunch!
After we cleaned up from the ice cream making we started our Bubbleology unit. We spent the rest of the afternoon testing soaps and bubble solutions to see which made the biggest bubbles. We had some children make some HUGE bubbles. We also had a competition to see who could create a device that would make the biggest bubbles. Everyone had fun, got covered in marker and bubbles!

Workshop & Fair Planning and Preparation

I've been planning for workshops and going shopping with Karrin for workshop and fair supplies. I have typed many documents, organized binders and papers, and helped pick out things for the Albemarle County Fair this year! I am excited for the fair to be here. Like camp, a lot of planning has gone into the fair and I am excited to see the how it goes! I'm from Rockingham County so I've heard Albemarle's fair is a little different than ours, and a little smaller. I guess I'll find out firsthand!
I have been putting lots of time and energy into planning my upcoming workshops and I'm excited to teach them! We will be doing lots of fun activities at each workshop! I hope to see lots of people at the fair and lots of children at my workshops! :)

Wacky Science Cloverbud Workshop

Yesterday I hosted the Wacky Science Cloverbud Workshop from 9am-3pm. We started the day by using air dry clay to make volcanoes around a soda bottle, After that we looked at the way rain works by using water, shaving cream, and food coloring and watched the food coloring go through the shaving cream cloud. We also soaked gummy bears in different solutions. We used water, soapy water, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, and liquid starch as solutions and checked to see the growth of the gummy bears throughout the day. (The gummy bear in water was the largest, but each solution had different effects on the gummy bears.) We then looked at density and used honey, corn syrup, dish soap, water, olive oil, and rubbing alcohol (dyed different colors for different layers) and out them in clear cups to observe the differences in densities between different liquids. We colored some coffee filters with washable markers and used water to watch the ink colors spread out. We were going to make these tie dye filters into butterflies but we ran out of time. :( The kids all wanted to take a little break after that and we took about 15 minutes to sing along to songs from the movie, Frozen, and dance. We did the Macarena, Cupid Shuffle, and Cha Cha Slide before we decided we were hungry and wanted lunch. We ate lunch and watched some Magic School Bus, then decided to have some free play with spaghetti noodles and marshmallows. A lot of marshmallows disappeared during this activity and it was cool to see all the creativity during this time! After that, we cleaned up LOTS of spaghetti noodles and headed outside to see how the volcanoes the kids had made earlier in the day worked! We used lots of baking soda and vinegar and both volcanoes erupted multiple times. Everyone enjoyed that. We also looked at the difference between pouring baking soda into a vinegar/water solution or pouring vinegar/water into baking soda. We found out that pouring the liquid over the baking soda causes a much larger and faster eruption. After the volcanoes were full of vinegar and were not erupting anymore, we moved on to Diet Coke and Mentos! We put Mentos into 6 2 liter bottles of Diet Coke and watched the Diet Coke spray at least 20 feet in the air. This was the most exciting experience of the day! But we didn't stop the fun after that! We came back inside and finished up the day with some Dirt Pudding, showing the different layers of dirt in the ground, and then made Slime/ooblek/gak/goo. It was a fun ending to the day and everyone left with food colored hands and a bunch of slime to play with. :) The day was great! The adults had fun, the kids had fun, and we all learned about science! :)

Eliza enjoying her dirt pudding snack!

Diet Coke and Mentos Fun! :)