By Melissa Mracek, Box Butte County 4-H Extension Educator
This fall, the Nebraska Extension 4-H staff will engage fourth-grade students from across the Panhandle in Animal Education. The educators will host several events across the region entitled “Animals Inside and Out.”
Traveling across the panhandle, Nebraska Extension 4-H staff will teach the program with the goal of students gaining a better understanding of where their food comes from, by-products, different careers working with animals, and learning about the body systems.
Throughout the day, youth engage in hands-on activities ranging from creating a ration, seeing an animal’s heart and how it works, making a joint, and so much more. This year, the team plans to interact with students from all eleven counties in the panhandle, reaching approximately 650 students.
The first events are being held in Chadron for all the North Panhandle students, Deuel County for Cheyenne and Deuel participants, and in Box Butte County. Last year, over 90 percent of the students stated they had done something they had never done before and that they better understand where our food comes from.