Mentoring occurs in an ad hoc and largely invisible manner in communities. This mentoring happens through modeling, storytelling, and asking open-ended questions. If Extension specialists and agents were more conscious and intentional about teaching community members and leaders about community mentoring, they would be more successful in resolving…

One way of combating rising obesity rates and decreasing physical activity levels among children is to promote active transportation to and from schools. The award-winning I-WALK program provides a comprehensive framework for addressing community walkability and related infrastructure. The program uses a unique and innovative methodology that…

The demographic and socioeconomic impacts of the baby boomer generation turning 65 in 2011 will be magnified in rural areas where elderly are already disproportionately represented. The overall goal of a collaborative, community-based project was to improve the health literacy, health outcomes, and overall well-being of rural elderly in four…

Many County Extension offices offer an adult Master Gardener Program, which includes advanced gardening training, short courses, newsletters, and conferences. However, with the comprehensive training provided comes a large time commitment. The Produce Your Own program was created to introduce adults to gardening in a similar manner, but with…

Personal food system mapping is a practical means to engage community participants and educators in individualized and shared learning about food systems, decisions, and behaviors. Moreover, it is a useful approach for introducing the food system concept, which is somewhat abstract. We developed the approach to capture diversity of personal food…

Extension continuously seeks novel and effective approaches to outreach and education. The recent retirement of a longtime content specialist catalyzed members of University of Minnesota Extension's Forestry team to reflect on our instructional capacity (internal and external) and educational design in the realm of maple syrup production. We…

Wheat and soybean producers pay a small amount per bushel produced as a check-off. Funds are used for research, outreach, and crop promotion. Commodity organizations and Extension joined forces to develop multi-state educational outreach on spring wheat and soybean production. Participatory planning involved producers in developing these…

This study focusses on finding out how leaders in three small communities view Extension. The results show that community leaders see the importance of Extension primarily as it contributes to the economic development of their communities. The author discusses implication for Extension and outlines some strategies for working with community…