Day 3

Day three of my internship proved to be a flurry of activity! I arrived this morning, and had a mini meeting with Mark to explain the games I planned for the Family Nutrition Night at the fairgrounds. After that, we briefly discussed the Afterschool Agriculture that I am doing tomorrow, and then headed down to the fairgrounds so that I could see the building we were going to be in for the evening, and introduce me to the staff at the fairgrounds.

I was really impressed by the organization of the grounds. The barns are laid out very nicely to work well with the show arena. The staff for the grounds are very nice, and were more than willing to explain what kind of stuff goes on at the grounds. They have three people in the office, two of which I believe are full time, and one that is part time. There are many more people that work in the office, but they are seasonal (ie, fair) help.

After touring the fairgrounds, Mark and I went to Walmart to pick up supplies for the event tonight, and then stopped by the campus to borrow a pop corn machine for the Family Nutrition Night. It seems to be a big advantage to have a campus so close to the office. Mark told me that he has a number of resources within the campus, and he has helped teach some of the classes for incoming students (also known as a survey class).

I spent the majority of the afternoon compiling ideas for the afterschool agriculture lesson that will be tomorrow. I have narrowed my plans to two ideas. There is a "mush" activity that involves taking cornstarch, and adding water to it. At the right ratio, the substance looks like a liquid, cuts like a solid, and when held in your hand runs like glue. It is pretty cool stuff, and since it is just cornstarch and water, it cleans up well too. The other activity is a type of "corn plastic" By using cornstarch, corn oil and water you can microwave the mixture, and the cooled material then is plastic made from corn. When I left this afternoon, it was a little on the gooey, mushy side, so I am leaning towards using the "mush" activity for tomorrow.


Right before we left for the event, I was able to finally get to see an Emerald Ash Borer for the first time. I was really excited to get to see the insect and damage up close, and be able to learn more about it. Curtis found a new tree with damage this afternoon, and took me out to see it. I was surprised to find that that much damage could be done in as little as one year, and that the this tree is dead already from the damage.



The Family Nutrition night was very interesting. I enjoyed learning about some of the healthy and fun recipes that our speaker had to teach us about. She was a very good speaker and kept the group's attention very well. The turn out for the event was not as good as anticipated, but it is something that I know Mark had ideas for improvement on. There was also a very nice cell "planetarium" provided by OSU Lima, and some of the Junior Fairboard members facilitated games for the kids to play. We ended up not needing my activities for the evening, but I was happy with the outcome of what the Junior Fairboard Members were able to accomplish!

Right after the Family Nutrition Night, there was a Junior Fairboard meeting. The meeting was very organized, and members all met in committees to plan the events that they were responsible for. They also voted on types of trophies and some cool jackets for the members to wear during fair week.

Overall, the day went very well! I am still suprised at how fast the days are seeming to go so far. My goal for tomorrow is to plan and impliment a good program for the youth that I will be teaching in the afternoon. I hope that my activities are something that truly interest them, and that they can benefit from what I can teach them.





Here is a picture of the larvae of the emerald ash borer. I just thought that would be a fun way to close this post of my third day in extension!