The National Youth Agri-Science Summit took place January 10-13 at the National 4-H Conference Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Over 275 youth from 27 states attended. Delegates from Massachusetts 4-H included Trevor Clapp, Aliyssa Courville, Ben Gomes, Siena Palese, Briley Wade and Ashleigh Woolf. Chaperones were 4-H Educator Carrie Sears and volunteers Paul Dunn, Joe Major and Barbi Woolf. Thank you to sponsors Tractor Supply and the Massachusetts 4-H Foundation for providing funding.
Workshops included Animal Biosecurity, GMO's, Making Cheese, Creating an Ag Business Plan, Nutrition and various other topics. The summit opened with remarks from the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Affairs, The Honorable Ted McKinney. The Massachusetts team returned home ready to roll out their action plan to educate the public about locally raised meat.
Ashleigh summed up her experience, "I felt the conference was very inspiring, both for me personally, as I did a lot of networking and made many important contacts, and also for the educational opportunities that I brought back for Sunny Rock 4-H club members. I made sure to take down all the information in order to download lesson plans, and Joe and I intend to put those lesson plans into practice by teaching that content to the senior members of the program, as well as during our summer camp, which caters to over 100 kids."
