Project Day Declared a Success
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Playing in the sand of the Rolling River Exhibit was favored by many of the 4-H members.
After being postponed from June 23 and rescheduled due to impossibly busy schedules, Blaine County 4-H held its annual Project Day on July 21. Twenty-nine 4-H members from six of the clubs in Blaine County attended.
Sign-in for members of Bear Paw Buddies, Big Flat, Harlem Variety, North Chinook Boosters, Valley Clovers, and White Pine clubs began on Wednesday morning at 8:30 at the 4-H Building on the Blaine County Fairgrounds. Those in attendance selected from a series of morning workshops. Among the topics in the rotation at 9:00 were Livestock Quality Assurance, Leatherwork, and Aerospace. At 10:00, younger members were invited to participate in a Teen Leader workshop, while others engaged with various visual art projects like hydro-dipping and brushless painting.
Hydro dipping is a technique in which paint resting on the surface of water is transferred onto an object through dipping. It produces some psychedelic effects, is incredibly simple, and results in unique designs with no two dips ever looking exactly alike.
To create colorful floral vases, 4-Hers used a rectangular plastic vessel nearly full of water. Onto the water's surface, various shades of fingernail polish were dripped and left to float. Using a plastic straw, wooden coffee stirring stick, or some similar device, the hydrophobic pigment was then swirled into a pattern to create a marbling effect. Next, a vase was twirled over the top of the water vessel to achieve a color transfer.
During the second session-a brushless painting workshop-the young artists poured, dripped, or splattered various pigments onto a canvas and then used the flat edge of a piece of cardboard to pull the paint across the canvas. Dragging, smearing, and scraping the layers of wet paint left tracks of the artist's movements across the surface.
Using these two techniques, many of the young people created artwork that they plan to enter in the Blaine County Fair, which is scheduled for August 12-15.
Closing out the morning, topics in a third round of workshops to explore were poultry, 4-H yard signs, and writing thank you notes. Family Consumer Science and 4-H Youth Development Agent with the MSU-Extension Blaine County staff, Trent Noel supervised a poultry workshop in which Linley Conrad demonstrated how to show poultry. Using her Light Brahma hen and her chick, Conrad led the group through an exercise in naming the chicken's various parts. She also reviewed the kinds of questions a judge will often ask during the showing period. Her demonstration took place in the Commercial Building.
Across the way in the 4-H Building, MSU-Extension Ag/4-H Agent, Julianne Snedigar shared tips for writing thank you notes and for using other methods like newspaper advertisements or radio announcements to recognize or express gratitude to 4-H supporters and livestock purchasers.
Following a pizza lunch served at noon, 4-H members rotated through the afternoon workshops, which included Farm/Ranch Safety for Kids presented by CHS Big Sky and Rolling River presented by Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Blaine County Conservation District (BCCD).
With the Rolling River Exhibit, Shannon Sattleen, the BCCD Deputy Clerk, and Russell Snedigar, a Soil Conservationist with NRCS, demonstrated the effects of water erosion. Sattleen explained to those gathered that soil erosion is a gradual process that occurs when the impact of water or wind detaches and removes soil particles, causing the soil to deteriorate. "Erosion is a serious problem for productive agricultural land and for water quality concerns," she said.
The pair was joined by Rachel Schlais, an NRCS/BCCD Unit Engineer. Their talk focused on giving the young people both a visual and a hands-on experience with stream dynamics.
Alexis Elias and Kaylie Skoyen share their vases after hydro-dipping.
"We compared and contrasted a stream that is well-protected and cared for versus one that is neglected. The young people could see the value of keeping animals from streams to maintain cleaner water and for ensuring that good vegetation and rocks line the shores to minimize erosion," Sattleen said. "But mostly, they just loved playing in the sand!"
Using an environmental model, the team simulated the effects of floodwaters on a house built beside a healthy stream versus one constructed on the bank of a non-healthy stream. "That really sent the idea home for them," Sattleen concluded, "since the house beside the neglected stream washed away without the benefit of rip-rap and vegetation on the stream bank."
While at times the energy flow of Project Day had Brenda Jones-the MSU-Extension Office and 4-H Administrative Assistant-and the two Extension Agents on high alert, all three agreed that the event was a success. "Kids are here and engaged," Snedigar said. "That's a win."
