Katie Rohling
4-H Youth
Development
une is a month of 4-H camps! Discovery Days, Greenbush, and Sunny Hills 4-H camp are fun times while learning responsibility. Crawford County sent two youth to Discovery Days. With the help of Julie Traxson, Josh Coltrain, Jeri Geren, and other agents from around the state I was able to organize another successful Techniques of Tailgating class at Discovery Days.
The class had 29 participants and is one of the first classes at camp to fill up. Discovery Days is on K-State campus and lets youth mimic college life by staying in the dorms and picking their own classes. Greenbush 4-H camp is for youth in Labette, Crawford, Cherokee, Wilson, and Southwind District. Julie Traxson did a great job organizing the camp and I enjoyed supervising youth as they canoed, fished, and climbed the ropes course!
Our final camp for the summer is Sunny Hills camp at Rock Springs. Crawford County sent eight youth. We picked up four counties and made friends on the way to camp. Youth love any outdoor activities this camp has to offer. Some favorites are horseback riding, mountain bikes, and the pool. Youth are responsible for keeping track of money, going to bed and getting up on time, and setting/cleaning up the supper table.
During this busy time of the year, agents get to collaborate and help other disciplines. Julie and I hosted a district Favorite Foods Contest this year in Parsons. While district contest wasn’t a huge hit, we have some ideas to improve participation and attendance! I also enjoyed helping Kylie at a youth financial simulation. It was fun to see the work other disciplines are doing and the impact making financial decisions leaves on youth.
June also means the farmers’ market is in full swing. I hosted a program at the Wednesday session of the Pittsburg Farmers’ Market two times in June. For the first session we talked about entomology and more specifically about which bugs are good and bad for our gardens. At the second session, we did a bee pollination simulation using paper flowers and Cheetos. Youth prevented they were bees diving into a paper sack of Cheetos, carrying Cheeto pollen over to their neighbor’s paper flower, and pollenating their flower to allow a garden vegetable to grow! I took along some wasps so we could look at their legs and how they might carry pollen. (I don’t have any honey or wood bees in my collection yet.)
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4-H/Youth development