It has been a very productive week up here in northwest Iowa! I have made tremendous progress towards my projects and fair is just around the corner!
Solving Mysteries
This week at PoP Club, our members became detectives! They had to reach inside of a box and feel the mystery vegetable. Based on touch, the kids had to guess what vegetable in the box. The kids enjoyed this activity, and they all did very well at it. In Sheldon, the kids had to identify a potato, a radish, and a green onion. Every kid was able to identify at least one vegetable, with most able to identify all three. After the activity, the kids had the opportunity to try rhubarb. I cooked the rhubarb in sugar to create a jam-like consistency. I was surprised that most of the kids enjoyed the rhubarb mixture. Out of 9 kids, only 2 did not like the rhubarb. I was expecting more kids to not like the mixture because rhubarb has a unique taste.
Busy Bees
On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to help Kate Stewart (O’Brien County K-12 Youth Coordinator) and Dustin Kohn (Region 1 Horticulture Intern) at the Prairie Heritage Center near Peterson, IA. We were asked to help ID prairie plants in a landscaping area. After IDing the plants, we got to work pulling weeds. This area was full of grass, and it looks like we barely made a dent after weeding for a couple hours. We had to be very careful when working in the area because there was wild parsnip scattered throughout. Once wild parsnip touches your skin, it is very irritating and causes blisters. Luckily, none of us touched the parsnip. It was a very nice day to get outside for a while and get back to some gardening work! There are definitely times where I miss my days as a horticulture intern for region 1.
Project Progression
So, I have made progress on editing my interview videos. Soon, I will be finished with that project! Yay! I am definitely not a professional editor yet, but I am getting better.
I have also made a lot of progress this week on the Fair StoryWalk. I have completed all of the information posters about the various species at the fair. I was originally going to put a QR Code on the story pages that would link to these posters, but I have now decided that the posters will be printed out and hung up next to the story pages. I made this decision after much debate and decided that it would be better to have physical copies. The posters contain information on how to be safe around the animals to prevent kids from getting injured.
I did hit a roadblock this week, though, with the StoryWalk. I currently can’t get permission to use “Mrs. Wishy-Washy Farm by Joy Cowley.” So, I am frantically trying to find a new story for the walk since my first fair is only 2 weeks away. If anyone has any suggestions for good kids’ books about farm animals, be sure to comment down below. I am open to suggestions!
We’re Halfway There!
This week was week 6, which marks the middle of this internship. How time flies! It definitely does not feel like my summer is halfway over. This has been such a fun summer preparing for PoP Club, spending time with my amazing PoP Club kids, meeting many new people, learning more about Extension, preparing for fairs, and going on all of these mini-adventures. Now that we have climbed to the top, it will be a downhill slide.
Until next time,
– Alex