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Ohio 4-H Youth Development

Ohio State University Extension

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4-H tent at Farm Science Review

Two youth at the Farm Science Review doing the Bio-Security Challenge.

Despite the cold and rainy temperatures, 4-H hosted over 500 youth with STEM activities at this year’s annual Farm Science Review. 4-H professionals and teens helped youth experience STEM in agriculture through hands-on challenges, experiments, simulations, and interactive games.

This year’s tent featured:

  • Ag Bio-Products Challenge: Youth learned about Ohio’s two major crops, corn and soybeans, and put products from those crops to work to make ag-bio products, including polymer bouncy balls and soy ink. A group of people work on the Ag Bio-Products Challenge.
  • Bio-Security Challenge: The focus was on zoonotic diseases, and youth completed a management task with stuffed animals (pig, cow, lamb) and used a light box to discover how germs are spread.
  • Water Quality Challenge: The importance of protecting our water resources was highlighted as youth evaluated 10 water samples and determined which were suitable for consumption.
  • Ag Safety Challenge: With copper foil, batteries, and LED lights, participants learned about electric circuits and created a Farm Safety Hazard Alert paper circuit
  • DNA Sequencing Challenge: Youth created their own DNA sequencing bracelet to better understand genetics and the ability of crops to resist disease or herbicide application.Two men operating a small drone.
  • Hi-Flying Drone Challenge: Drones play an important part in today’s agriculture, and youth had the opportunity to fly a mini-drone in a controlled setting. 
  • Precision Ag Sprayer Challenge: Youth engineered a flight pattern for a drone to apply herbicide to a crop field based on data and utilizing line-following bots.
  • Food Packaging Challenge: Products need to safely transport from farm to market, and here youth engineered a prototype for a four-pack egg carton and tested their design’s abilityTwo boys working on an activity. to protect the eggs from breakage. 

This year, two boys who were attending with an exhibitor in another building came back over and over again to participate in the activities. They just couldn’t get enough of the hands-on learning in the Ohio 4-H STEM in Ag Tent. Check out their photo as they participated in the Precision Ag Sprayer Challenge! 

A group of girls doing the precision ag sprayer challenge.