Extension is positioned to develop and implement high-quality, high-impact internship experiences for college students in local communities. The creation of the Rising Star Internship program arose from interest in providing experiential work opportunities for Iowa State University students coupled with the organizational goals of promoting…

A diagnostic walkabout (DW) is an in-field diagnostic training program for professionals in the green industry (greenhouse, landscape, nursery, and turf businesses). DWs have been scheduled annually since 2002 and are easily replicable, fee-based programs that provide cost recovery. DWs also serve as a mentoring program for new Extension…

Understanding how farmers prefer to learn is critical for the development and delivery of successful extension programming. Therefore, Michigan State University Extension specialists conducted an interactive hands-on demonstration workshop (Potato University) addressing pressing issues to Michigan potato production at the Michigan Winter Potato…

This article discusses best practices learned from a corporate partnership between Bayer, 4-H county programs in Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and National 4-H Council. This corporate partnership has blossomed into a multi-level engagement that is offering unique opportunities for both Bayer and 4-H programs at the local and state level.…

Extension agents obtain professional development (PD) through a variety of means, some of which have been critiqued as lacking in creativity or involvement of experiential learning approaches. As Extension engages in reinvention and reimaging in response to competition in the information marketplace, direct and candid connections with a changing…

Providing experiential learning opportunities within Extension for college students generates benefits for multiple parties. As two campus-based faculty and two Extension county-based faculty who have collaborated to increase public health student engagement through endeavors within Extension, we have gained perspective on this topic. We describe…

Despite the importance of bees, there is a gap in the public's understanding of them. To help address this gap, we developed the outreach tool Experience Bees, a series of simple learning and hands-on activities to teach community members about bees and their importance in our landscapes. Program evaluation showed that participants learned about…

Action learning is a practical and high-impact way to enhance staff development within an organization. With action learning, participants are invited to own their learning experience by weaving personal experience, individual professional needs, and developmental training into a concentrated focus. In Extension, it is vital to offer tangible…

The Full Value Commitment is an essential tool for facilitators that defines how members of a group of adults or youths operate while moving toward the group's goals. This article outlines what goes into establishing a Full Value Commitment and provides an overview of samples that are easily replicated. Through establishing group members' verbal…

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers are among the fastest growing and highest paying, yet women are largely underrepresented in these fields, and many girls lack access to STEM opportunities in school. Oregon State University's Open Campus partners with the American Association of University Women to bring an experiential…

University of Connecticut Extension educators are engaged in a new program that fosters intergenerational informal science, technology, engineering, and math learning through combining geospatial technology and conservation science. Conservation Training Partnerships (CTP) is a program that brings together adult conservation leaders and…

Teaching record keeping for breeding projects in a way that keeps youths engaged is a difficult task. The activity discussed in this article was used to teach 4-H participants the importance of record keeping by implementing the experiential learning model and without lecturing. A description of the activity, instructions and materials for the…

This article describes a modified importance-performance framework for use in evaluation of recreation-based experiential learning programs. Importance-performance analysis (IPA) provides an effective and readily applicable means of evaluating many programs, but the near universal satisfaction associated with recreation inhibits the use of IPA in…

University faculty and Extension educators sought to use school gardens in Burundi, Africa, as a means of reducing food insecurity, teaching positive youth development, and increasing experiential learning for Burundian students. Washington State University personnel used videoconferencing to provide training to Burundian nongovernmental…

The concept of a "healthful home" offers the basis for a comprehensive approach to addressing the well-established relationship between health and housing. Many environmental health hazards found in homes--such as lead, mold, environmental tobacco smoke, and pesticides--can be reduced or eliminated through the use of scientifically…