Extension Archives - Page 4 of 6 - University Outreach and Engagement

By Kym Pokorny

maker club sailboad — Members of the OSU Extension 4-H Maker’s club, along with staff from Wind and Oar Boat School, launch the sailboat the students made by hand.

In a small conference room at Portland Community College’s Southeast campus, a dozen middle school students turned a pile of wood into a 12-foot sailboat.

The feat was accomplished by members of the Oregon State University Extension Service’s Makers 4-H club, which was formed in 2014 to give kids in Southeast Portland a chance to participate in an after-school program in an area where few existed.

The students built the boat under the tutelage of staff from partner Wind & Oar Boat School. In the process, they put new skills to work helping to design and engineer the boat. Construction started in September 2015 and wrapped up in January. The boat was launched Aug. 13 at Willamette Sailing Club.

“Each week they got to explore nautical terminology, buoyancy, lofting, angular design and marine architecture,” said Stacey Sowders, Extension 4-H outreach coordinator. “We intended to give them new experiences, which we expected to increase their self-confidence.”

Raxlee Rax, who is about to start his freshman year at Franklin High School, said it worked for him. “I really think this program has boosted my confidence toward building something or designing something or making something happen. And I think it will spill over into other parts of my life.”

maker club sailboat — After spending two months building a sailboat as an after-school project with the OSU Extension’s Makers 4-H club, it was a thrill for Josue Corono-Solis to launch it.

Typically, extracurricular programs are held at school sites. Because the Makers 4-H club is on the PCC campus, it can pull students from several middle schools in the area, allowing them to connect with new kids and adults. Being on campus also increases their chance of going to college, according to Sowders.

“Bringing someone in to talk about their college and career experiences to the kids is one thing,” she said. “But if they get to walk on a college campus they can see themselves there.”

Dani IV, a 14-year-old who participated in the boat-building project, said she’s more prepared for college now and appreciates that much of what she learned will help guide her to schools that have good programs in science, technology, engineering and math. Someday she’d like to be an engineer.

Most of the kids in the Makers club don’t have access to STEM-oriented activities, said Tanya Kindrachuk, Extension club coordinator and a former 4-H member. She’s watched the middle-school students respond with enthusiasm to the boat-building project as well as one designing a computer game.

“I feel like they’re having a blast or they wouldn’t show up, and pretty much all the kids show up every time,” she said. “If I had this when I was in middle school, I would have loved it. I’m having a blast now at 20 years old.”

Parents and siblings also get to experience some of the fun. During the Friday sessions, they come to see the latest developments and ask questions. It’s a time for the kids to connect with family, proudly showcase the work they’re doing and show off their new skills, Kindrachuck said.

For this school year, Sowders is considering a Makers club activity involving computers and programming. For now, Sowders is still assessing the impact of the boat-building project.

“The biggest success was when Dani’s mom told me she bought Dani a bookcase and asked her if she wanted help putting it together. And Dani said, ‘No, I know how to do this and I’ve used all these tools,’ Sowders said.

“I wanted the kids to learn new skills, but even more to learn how to meet challenges,” she added. “I don’t care if they remember how to build a boat, but I want them to go away feeling empowered to meet challenges.

Written by Ricardo Perez, PROMISE Intern

I am Ricardo Perez and I am the 2016 PROMISE intern for Outreach and Engagement, Open Campus. I am entering my junior year here at Oregon State University studying Business Management with an option in International Business. After hearing about the large professional development growth the previous PROMISE interns had, I decided to apply to the program in hopes of obtaining the same skills.

Having the opportunity to be mentored by Jeff Sherman, the program leader for Open Campus, has been far from boring. Jeff gave me the tools necessary to evolve into a more competent individual in the business world. Through my experience, Jeff instructed me on programming logistics, how to use project management software, how to communicate with community partners and he gave me the freedom to create new projects.

I would also like to mention Hollie Conger. Hollie is in charge of marketing and communications for Open Campus. Hollie greatly influenced my experience and positively impacted my marketing skills. Through our work, Hollie showed me how to manage social media accounts, edit video, maintain the website and use Adobe Illustrator.

My experience as an intern would not have been the same if it were not for these individuals. Being able to intern for people who create an engaging and energizing environment made my time as an intern the best it could be. The support they gave me and the skills I acquired have truly impacted my professional development.

Ricardo Perez PROMISE workshop — Ricardo Perez with OSU Open Campus mentors Jeff Sherman and Hollie Conger

My main project was to organize the 2016 Roads Scholar Engagement Tour. The main goal for The Roads Scholar Tour is to invite newer faculty and employees who are new to engagement, to gain a sense for community engagement and to form relationships with colleagues who do similar work. This year’s tour is located in Central Oregon, with stops in Warm Springs, Redmond, and Bend. Having the opportunity to construct The Roads Scholar Tour and collaborate with so many members has enhanced my communication skills and prepared me for a career in business.

Along with planning The Roads Scholar Engagement Tour, I was involved in small projects for the Juntos program. Through this experience, I had the opportunity to work with Ana Gomez, the main coordinator for Juntos. Working with Ana made this experience so fun and exciting! Seeing someone who is so passionate in helping others really sparked my fascination with the program. Through my experience, I learned how Juntos works to empower families around education, is constructed to prevent youth from dropping out of high school and encourages families to work together to gain access to college. My main project for Juntos was planning the 2017 Family Day, an event where families have an opportunity to visit the OSU campus and learn more about the different resources available.

It is hard to believe that my journey as an intern is more than half way complete. My experience here at Outreach and Engagement, Open Campus has been one I will never forget. The amount of professional, as well as personal growth I developed is something I never thought would happen in a short 10 weeks.

I am honored to interact with people who truly enjoy positively impacting the Oregon community. I would like to give thanks to my mentors who have shown me the immense impact Outreach and Engagement has, as well as preparing me for the professional world. Jeff, Hollie, Ana, and Pam, thank you for all your hard work and for providing me the best experience possible at Outreach and Engagement.

Written by Emalee Rabinovitch, PROMISE Intern

OSU-ALUMNI-CLATSOP-COUNTY-FAIR-2016-11 — PROMISE intern Emalee Rabinovitch (left) at the 2016 Clatsop County Fair with Benny the Beaver and a friend.

How do you touch the lives of the people that you meet?

This is a question I find myself asking pretty frequently. My whole life I have known that I wanted to enter a career field where I could continually touch the lives of those around me. So when I found an internship that did just that, I knew it would be a perfect fit for me.

My name is Emalee Rabinovitch and I am about to graduate from Oregon State University with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Public Health and Education. One of my final tasks here at OSU was to find an internship that aligned with the same values and outcomes as my degree. After doing a bit of searching, I came across the PROMISE Program.

The PROMISE Program is a 10-week internship experience that provides opportunities in state and local government agencies, as well as university programs for Oregon State University undergraduate students. These internships are intended to provide students a pathway to a professional career with an emphasis on helping underrepresented students.

After acceptance into the program, PROMISE coordinators set up a number of interviews for students to find an internship site that best understands their career aspirations and needs. On April 26, 2016, I received an email from one of the coordinators saying I received a joint offer from the Division of University Outreach and Engagement and OSU Extension Service Coast Region.

Before I knew it I was set up and ready to go in Ballard Extension Hall on campus.

My first week consisted of getting to know the new faces around me while diving head-first into what Extension was all about. My main project is to create a one-page, double-sided marketing tool template to inform readers about how Extension is influencing the lives of community members in Oregon’s counties.

The goal is to create a customizable marketing tool for each county and region to inform more people about the resources provided through their local Extension offices. Starting with Clatsop County, I visited the office in Astoria and met their very welcoming staff members saw the work they were doing. By visiting the county, I was able to see the impact these programs have on the members of the community and the positive changes being made.

20160628_PromiseCandids_HO-5970 - Copy — Emalee Rabinovitch (right), PROMISE intern, and Ann Marie Murphy (left), mentor, get to know one another during a PROMISE workshop.

The best way I can describe this overall journey is that it is an internship within an internship. I not only was provided with one learning experience through sessions with my PROMISE team, but I also was provided with an experience here at University Outreach and Engagement that allows me to grow as a professional and individual, as well as creating lasting workplace relationships.

This program is unique because it allowed me to gain not one, but several excellent mentors who helped me reach my goals and provided me with excellent resources for my future. One of the mentors I found myself looking to was Ann Murphy, communication and marketing manager for University Outreach and Engagement. I met Ann for the first time during my interview for the position back in April and could tell immediately she had a great sense of creativity and dedication.

Eric Dunker, Regional Administrator for the Coast Region, has been an outstanding mentor in this process as well. I admire Eric’s passion to get out there and be hands-on in order to give the communities what they need. I saw this in both Eric and Ann while getting to know them professionally and personally in these past 10 weeks. Both are extremely driven individuals who want to make a difference and educate people about what Extension Service has to offer. I feel very fortunate to have met these two and to have had the chance to be mentored by them. They taught me much more than they signed up for and provided me with excellent resources as I graduate and enter the “real world.”

After learning so much about the Division, it brought me back to asking: “How do you touch the lives of the people that you meet?” University Outreach and Engagement and Extension Service do this every day.

I never knew 10 weeks could go by so fast, but in my time being here I was able to see incredible staff members make positive changes in the communities and people they cared for. The programs offered are directly touching the lives of neighbors, friends, local business owners and many more, as well as letting local stakeholders be involved in the decision making process.

Each faculty member touches the lives of those they interact with and had a significant influence in making my time here great. As I go on in my future endeavors, I hope to educate more people about Extension resources and how they can benefit everyone involved.

I may be just an intern, but after this experience I feel like I have the necessary tools in my toolbox to go out into society and touch the lives of those around me because of what I have learned from my time here at University Outreach and Engagement.

To learn more about the PROMISE program, click this link.

Written by Ann Marie Murphy for the fall edition of O&E —

The Hopkins Demonstration Forest is a 140-acre, privately-owned forest and operating tree farm where family woodland owners and the public can learn about forest management. The forest is operated by Forests Forever, Inc., a nonprofit organization with the mission “to promote science-based education to enhance understanding of and appreciation for the complexities and benefits of woodland management.”

Although the forest is in Oregon City and part of the Portland metropolitan area, it is still a challenge to attract new audiences and a larger cross-section of society to experience and learn from the forest’s example of sustainable forestry.

In response, Hopkins Forest of Arts was launched in 2013 as a collaboration between Forests Forever, Inc., Three Rivers Artists Guild, and Oregon State University Extension Service. The event, led by OSU Extension faculty with the help of volunteers from both the arts and forestry communities, brings together music, environmental interests and art that is created from, in or about the forest—all while offering educational experiences about forest management.

In 2014, OSU Extension Forester Glenn Ahrens engaged faculty and students from OSU’s College of Liberal Arts to participate in the Forest of Arts event. The collaboration resulted in a “Creative Forest” program in 2015 that inspired five OSU Liberal Arts faculty and 36 OSU art and music students to think creatively about the forest and its meanings to the communities, families and people who live in and are supported by forests. Results can be seen in this video: https://vimeo.com/146518978.

Find out more about the Hopkins Demonstration Forest: www.demonstrationforest.org

Adapted from a news release written by Kym Pokorny, Extension and Experiment Station Communications–

It’s that time of year! The bounty of Oregon’s tempting produce is ripening and interest in food preservation remains strong.

OSU’s food preservation and safety hotline has opened for the season. Master Food Preservers, who have completed 40 hours of training, answer question ranging from how to avoid botulism to how to convert grandma’s recipe for pie filling to modern standards.

“The most important part of safe and healthy food preservation is finding current, tested instructions, and following them,” said Jeanne Brandt, Extension Master Food Preserver program coordinator. “Food preservation research is an ongoing process, so there are a lot of recent changes in canning recommendations and new equipment and products. Using the most current and research-based instructions will help ensure your products are safe, healthy and delicious.”

The toll-free hotline at 800-354-7319 runs until Oct. 14 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. When the hotline is closed, callers can leave a message. Additionally, many Extension offices offer free pressure gauge testing.

The hotline gets thousands of questions a year. Most commonly, people ask about preserving salsa, tomatoes and tuna. OSU Extension offers publications on each: Salsa Recipes for Canning, Canning Seafood and Canning Tomatoes and Tomato Products.

For more information, go to the OSU Extension website on food preservation. OSU Extension’s Ask an Expert service also takes online questions about food preservation.

What’s your favorite food to preserve?

Written by Ann Marie Murphy –

Ask an Expert, an internet-based service offered through OSU Extension Service, has helped to answer more than 20,000 inquiries.

The service was developed by eXtension in 2006 as a national online tool for all of Cooperative Extension and was launched in Oregon in March, 2011. Oregon is one of the top five most active users of the service.

Half of all inquiries come from people that are new to OSU Extension Service, making it an excellent tool for community engagement.

On average, 77 percent said their Ask an Expert question was very or critically important to them and 78 percent said the answer very much or completely answered their question. Questions range from “Should we eat expired tofu?“ to the more provocative “May I throw rocks at my husband to save our tree?”

Answers to Ask an Expert questions also have the power to change lives: 65 percent said they changed their behavior as a result of the answer to their question.

How does it work? Ask an Expert questions are forwarded to a national databank. The system then automatically assigns the questions to experts in the state from which the question originated based on their listed expertise.

“A team of local Oregon Question Monitors jump in to assist in the digital process, putting people-powered networking skills into the loop,” said Jeff Hino, recently retired learning technology leader in Extension and Experiment Station Communications, and coordinator of OSU’s Ask an Expert. Monitors help guide the questions to the best experts, which include a stable of more than 130 OSU faculty experts and more than 30 master gardeners. Their goal is to get the question answered in less than 48 hours, the national service standard. “On average, Oregon is doing better than that,” said Hino.

Ask the Expert has a high profile on county Extension websites and a “Question of the Week” is regularly featured on OregonLive, The Oregonian’s online edition, and in the newspaper’s home and gardening section (approximately 60 percent of the questions are garden related).

Other interesting and intriguing questions include:

Thank you to all the experts that respond to Ask the Expert questions! And don’t forget, Ask the Expert is a resource if you need an answer to one of life’s pressing questions.

Adapted from a story written by Oregon Sea Grant, which will appear in the Fall 2016 edition of O&E—

Working Waterfronts map — Map of Coos Bay’s working waterfront

Are you heading to the Oregon Coast this summer? Have you driven the coast highway wondering where you can find fresh seafood, or want to know where the seafood came from, or even if it is in season? We might have just the thing for you!

Oregon Sea Grant and OSU Extension Service developed two apps for smartphones and tablets to appeal to tourists and seafood lovers. The goal is to bolster the state’s coastal economies.

The first app, Oregon’s Catch, identifies locations along the entire Oregon coast where people can buy fresh and frozen seafood caught by Oregon fishermen.

The second app, Oregon’s Working Waterfronts, offers a self-guided tour of waterfronts in Coos Bay, North Bend and Charleston. Through video clips and photos, users get a behind-the-scenes look at local industries and infrastructure—including a lumber mill, seafood processor, Coast Guard cutter, shipyard and tuna troller—and the people who work in and on them.

“For tourists, I hope they learn something, stay a little longer, and have a greater appreciation for the Coos Bay area,” says Jamie Doyle, an Oregon Sea Grant specialist with the Oregon State University Extension Service who was involved with development of the apps along with Mark Farley, Cyber Lab manager at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.

In addition to the app, Oregon Sea Grant produced a fold-out map of the same “stops.” The map will be available at local businesses and other attractions. The developers plan to add tours of other waterfronts in the future.

Both apps are free and available for Android and Apple devices. Search for Oregon’s Working Waterfronts and Oregon’s Catch (available at the end of July 2016).

Even if you’re not planning a trip to the south coast any time soon, Oregon Sea Grant produced a series of working waterfront videos: http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/sgpubs/oregons-working-waterfront-tour-series-online-videos

Written by Ann Marie Murphy —

Mayra Senator Merkley — Senator Jeff Merkley with YA4-H! Malheur County teen teacher, Myra.

Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley was impressed. So impressed, he bestowed an award on the Malheur County Youth Advocates for Health (YA4-H!) program.

Recognizing its impact, Senator Jeff Merkley selected and recognized the Malheur County YA4-H! Teens as Teachers program and presented them with a Community Commendation Flag at the town hall in Ontario, Ore., for their work in Malheur County.

YA4-H! is a statewide teen health ambassador program that began in Oregon in the fall of 2011 with the ultimate goal of leading positive health-related change in their communities. In the process, the teen ambassadors also learn healthy eating and active lifestyle behaviors.

Here’s a sample of the project’s contribution to Malheur county:

Since 2013, the teens have helped plan, plant, and harvest over 6,482 pounds of produce in partnership with the Four Rivers Community Garden for the Next Chapter Food Pantry. In 2015 the teens held ten education field trips for youth in the community garden.
They reached 500 youth in kindergarten through sixth grade with five hours of direct education related to physical activity, nutrition, plant science, and healthy living.
They worked with community partners such as Alameda Elementary School to host a Food Hero booth at a Fun Run.

“This project is an exceptional example of a true community partnership and the importance Extension plays in the community,” noted Barbara Brody, Family & Community Health and 4-H Youth Development, OSU Extension Service Malheur County. “Partners include: Ontario School District; Adult Volunteers/Advisors; Four Rivers Community Garden; St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church; 4-H Alumni; and the teens who are currently enrolled.”

The teens participating in the project have proof of their success: Evaluations show that over 90% of the youth that participated in the program delivered by the teens said they would stop drinking sugary drinks. They also tried new foods and learned how to grow their own foods. Another teen participant commented, “I have become more aware of my health by teaching the kids about nutrition and physical activity. I no longer drink soda!” Now that’s a result with the potential for lifelong impact.

Teens as teachers YA4H training 028 — Studying to be a YA4-H! teen teacher.

To qualify as a YA4-H! teen teacher, teens make a substantial commitment in time – at least 10 hours of training is recommended as a minimum, but 30-40 hours of training is preferred – and must be:

Between the ages of 15 – 17;
Motivated to learn about healthy eating and the benefits of an active lifestyle; and
Able to communicate the value of healthy eating and increased physical activity, and to help others make healthy choices.

Learn more about the program here.

Sources: YA4-H! Youth Advocates for Health website , Mary Arnold on YA4-H!

Excerpts from the Spring/Summer 2016 Confluence, an Oregon Sea Grant publication –

drought map May 2015_National Drought Mitigation Center — May 2015 U.S. Drought Monitor Map, National Drought Mitigation Center

Editor’s note: Climate change is perhaps the toughest problem facing our world today. This week’s blog features excerpts from the most recent issue of Confluence, a publication produced by Oregon Sea Grant (OSG). OSG works on issues related to freshwater and marine waterways and climate change is dramatically impacting both.

Oregon Sea Grant has an interesting history and is an integral part of OSU’s community outreach and engagement model. Housed on the OSU campus, OSG is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and funds research conducted at OSU and other universities. Climate change, tsunami preparedness, and wave energy are three areas of research priority.

According to the OSG website, “congress created the NOAA Sea Grant program in 1968 in an effort to bring the kind of national attention and resources to ocean and coastal issues that the USDA’s Extension Service had brought to rural agricultural communities since the early 20th century. In 1971, Oregon was designated one of the nation’s first four Sea Grant states, along with Washington, Texas and Rhode Island. Today Sea Grant programs are found in every coastal state; and Oregon’s is still widely considered one of the very top programs.

Drought map intensity key — Drought intensity

“With resident Extension faculty stationed up and down the coast, a core of marine educators and aquarists at the (now Hatfield) Marine Science Center, and capable scientists, communicators and administrators on the OSU campus, Sea Grant has become an important part of OSU’s research and public engagement portfolio.”

Drought map May 2016_National Drought Mitigation Center — May 2016 U.S. Drought Monitor Map, National Drought Mitigation Center

Four new videos produced by Oregon Sea Grant (OSG) show how certain business practices, farming techniques, and riparian management strategies are better poised to tolerate droughts in Oregon. The videos, produced by OSG videographer Vanessa Ciccone in collaboration with John Stevenson, a climate specialist with OSG Extension at OSU, can be found on the OSG YouTube Channel along with other fascinating videos.

The short videos form a series called Documenting the Drought: Mitigating the Effects in Oregon. OSG created them in response to the state’s 2015 drought, said Stevenson. “We found that the people and places that did better during the drought were the ones where investment had been made in water conservation and restoration efforts over the past decade.”

The conditions that led up to the 2015 drought is described in one video. Another features Frank Burris, the county leader of the OSU Extension Service in Curry County and OSG’s watershed health specialist for the southern Oregon coast, describing riparian restoration projects along Pea and Gallagher Creeks. The projects were prompted by concern over the effects of rising stream temperatures and reduced stream flow on salmon, a mainstay of the region’s recreational fishing economy.

If you’ve skied in Ashland, one of the videos may be of particular interest to you. Mt. Ashland Ski Area adapted to sparse winter snowfall by relocating snow and was able to open for 38 days in 2014-15 versus none in the prior ski season. During the summer months, you’re likely to be able to enjoy ziplining, a bungee trampoline, disc golf and concerts, all of which will supplement declining ski-season income.

In another video, Bill Buhrig, a crops specialist with OSU Extension in Malheur County talks about planting faster maturing plants as a success strategy for farmers where a full season of water is no longer available. Strategies to conserve water through buried pipelines and gravity systems are described and extend the irrigation season by two to three weeks.

Written by Ann Marie Murphy —

Get your gardening questions answered by OSU Extension Master Gardener volunteers like Judi Sanders. Photo by Lynn Ketchum.

How often do you find exceptional, customized advice for free?

If you, family members, or friends have a gardening question, there are two ways to get free, reliable advice. No, it’s not an Internet search! Email a question to Ask and Expert, or pick up the phone and call a Master Gardener. Both resources are courtesy of OSU Extension Service.

Kym Pokorny, news writer for OSU Extension and part of the Extension and Experiment Station Communications (EESC) news team, recently wrote an article about Master Gardeners. Below are a few highlights of the article; the full article can be found here.

Twenty-eight county Extension offices host Master Gardeners. Novice or experienced gardeners with questions are encouraged to bring samples or send photos of the plant or insect into the local Extension office. Then let the Master Gardener go to work to comprehensively research your question.

It takes almost 70 hours of intensive training to become a Master Gardener, then every year thereafter additional training for recertification is required. After certification, Master Gardeners are asked to donate 70 hours of their time for community service. (In my experience, quite a few volunteer many times that amount of time!) Manning the phones and having office hours in an Extension office are ways to fulfill their volunteer commitment. Master gardeners also work directly with the public at farmer’s markets, plant sales, garden shows, county fairs, demonstration gardens, schools, and correctional facilities. Most counties offer a seasonal slate of classes, too.

Gail Langellotto, associate professor in the Department of Horticulture, College of Agricultural Sciences, is the statewide master gardener coordinator, a program that encompasses more than 3,000 active volunteers. Training is essential. “A lot of times people call wanting verification of something they’ve looked up on the Internet,” Langellotto said. “We use that as a jumping off point for a conversation. We make sure a person knows the questions to ask to get the answers they need.” And that’s why scientific advice, customized to situations in Oregon are so important.

You may also want to check out OSU Extension’s Gardening Community Page for information on a variety of gardening topics. The site includes gardening tips, videos, podcasts, monthly calendars of outdoor chores, how-to publications, and information about the Master Gardener program.

OSU also has several publications, of specific interest to home gardeners, available online on the OSU Extension Publication Catalog.

University Outreach and Engagement

Category Archives: Extension

Boat-building project teaches 4-H students skills for the future

By Kym Pokorny

10 weeks as a PROMISE Intern

70 Days. 10 weeks. Once in a lifetime experience.

Written by Emalee Rabinovitch, PROMISE Intern

Hopkins Forest of Arts works for Oregon’s forestry future

Written by Ann Marie Murphy for the fall edition of O&E —

OSU’s food preservation and safety hotline open for canning season

Adapted from a news release written by Kym Pokorny, Extension and Experiment Station Communications–

50% of Ask an Expert users are first-time users of OSU Extension

Written by Ann Marie Murphy –

New apps help seafood lovers and coastal tourists

Adapted from a story written by Oregon Sea Grant, which will appear in the Fall 2016 edition of O&E—

Teens help kids embrace a healthier lifestyle

Written by Ann Marie Murphy —

Mitigating Drought in Oregon

Excerpts from the Spring/Summer 2016 Confluence, an Oregon Sea Grant publication –

Reliable + Reachable + Relevant = OSU Extension Master Gardeners

Written by Ann Marie Murphy —

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