Our Impact
Making A Difference in Our County
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University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is working hard for its constituents. The following are examples of Extension’s impact on the county over the past year.
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McIntosh County Extension provides programs in youth development, agriculture and natural resources (ANR), and family and consumer sciences (FACS) to McIntosh County citizens. McIntosh 4-H is dedicated to investing in our youth, meeting monthly with 4th- to 12th-grade students across all county schools while providing appealing and positive youth development experiences. FACS provides engaging and informative community programs dedicated to educating the citizens of McIntosh County on topics such as health, chronic disease prevention, and overall well-being. ANR programming supports our farmers and agricultural community, including local gardeners and beekeepers, as they create over $22M in farm-gate value with blueberries, timber, and ecotourism being the top annual commodities.?
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Agriculture and Natural Resources
ANR programs provide research-based information in Agriculture and Natural Resources to all residents. Educational programming is developed and designed to assist individuals in making sound economic and environmental decisions that affects everyday life. MC Halbrook, ANR agent for Glynn and McIntosh Counties, served both counties through the following programs.
For 2024, we had 6 full time Master Gardeners (MGEV), and they reported 1,086 volunteer hours dedicated to the Glynn County community. This program has grown to include Friends of the Master Gardeners. These volunteers help to maintain our Madge Merritt 4-H Teaching Garden and learn-by-doing under the guidance of the veteran MGEVs. The fruit and vegetables that are harvested from the garden are donated to a local food bank to ensure we are serving our community each step of the way. Total produce harvested and donated was just under 400lbs.
Each spring, Camden County Extension hosts a Master Naturalist program that consists of nine, six- hour classes. This year, Glynn and McIntosh Counties partnered with them to include a wider range of potential participants. During this course, participants learn topics including living shorelines, stormwater management, fisheries management, native plants, invasive species, barrier island ecology, prescribed fire, swamp ecology, and so much more. This year we had 17 participants who hailed from all three counties plus some additional, surrounding counties and Florida.
St. Simons Island Plant Clinic is an opportunity for islanders to visit with the Extension Ag Agent without crossing over the causeway. Essentially a remote office for the day, your ag agent can take calls, emails, and walk-ins just like normal. This is also an opportunity for clients to drop off soil and water samples. This was piloted August – December. Five participants joined over the course of this time. Adjustments will be made to locations to better reach those clients who are further away from the main office going forward.
Experience Agriculture Locally was launched with four planned farm tours during the month of August. Ten community members signed up to attend this program. This program was still eye-opening to those participants who attended, and several made comments about being inspired to give some of the practices they were introduced to a try on their own land. This also inspired the farm-to-sea or fields-to-flats program that 海角官方首页 Extension will partner with Marine Extension to carry out in the near future.
In 2024, we celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Georgia Master Gardener Program. Our county chapter prepared in several ways to participate in the state-wide celebrations. All volunteers attended the Teaching with Demonstration Gardens Advanced Training, they also worked with other Extension Volunteers to prepare the garden in the spring for the final celebration step. This event was intended to span the state and allow visitors from nearby or anywhere across the state to visit a teaching garden and meet the MGEV. When the data was presented at the Annual Program Update, our garden was amongst the average for attendees at 32 visitors. Even though we are far away from other counties that offer the program (Metro-Atlanta) we were still able to bring in a great crowd to celebrate with us.
Glynn County Master Gardener Extension Volunteers have developed two monthly programs that teach our community localized gardening skills. Adult learners attend Meet Me in The Garden (MMITG) and kids can join the 4-H Garden Club.
MMITG is a free event primarily targeted at community adults. They learn about different lawn, garden, and landscape topics while seeing first-hand the success the MGEVs have in our Teaching Garden. Madge Merritt 4-H Teaching Garden provides a visual for plans they can implement in their own landscaping. Topics for the Nov. 2023-Oct. 2024 program year of MMITG included: gardening books, rain barrels, sharing gardening with children, seed starting, turfgrass for homeowners, pollinators, Pollinate Your Plate, composting, container gardening, and preparing a fall garden. This diverse array of educational programming attracted 180+ visitors to the last 12 sessions.
The 4-H Garden Club also meets monthly. At these meetings, students learn both short and long-term crop evaluation techniques. They engage by planting new crops and harvesting produce. This club provides the opportunity to gain experience by doing under the guidance of MGEV. Their Nov. 2023-Oct. 2024 educational programming spanned eight sessions and included topics such as planting, propagation, harvesting, irrigation, pollinator plants, grouping plants for aesthetics, and yearly crop rotations. The 4-H Garden Club is open to any child in Glynn or McIntosh County who is registered as a 4-H member.?At present, there are 10 members who regularly attend these club meetings. We are collaborating with the 4-H program staff in both Glynn and McIntosh counties to grow the Garden Club even more.
Other educational opportunities include a monthly ANR newsletter, where we share blog posts covering timely topics within the ANR scope. This is also a place where we will advertise upcoming educational events, fundraisers, and local news that is relevant to the agriculture community. This newsletter has over 200 subscribers and is continuously growing.
Other presentations given include Indoor Houseplants, Historic Rice Production, Pond Management, 13-Year Cicada Emergence, Preparing a Spring Garden, Recycling, Rain Gardens and Rain Barrels.
What Extension is most known for is our soil testing. Through our offices, we submitted 606 soil tests and 102 water tests for the last program year. Along with this testing, we offer personalized guidance for a fertilization routine based on their results and the plants they would like to grow. We also interpret water test results and most often offer guidance on water filtration systems, softeners, and how to treat well water.
4-H Youth Development
McIntosh County 4-H Agent used Jekyll animal ambassadors to increase environmental literacy and connectedness to nature of Georgia youth at the Southeast District Spring Junior Conference and through local in-school and summer programming.
In today's society, there is a growing number of individuals who suffer from “nature-deficit disorder” or a lack of connection to nature. This lack of a connection can lead to several outcomes, including decreased motivation for engagement with the natural environment in youth, lowered involvement in agriculture and natural resource-based organizations (i.e., FFA and 4-H), and minimal pro-environmental behavior performance. This phenomenon, coupled with the lack of agricultural and environmental literacy among the public, can lead to adults who do not support agriculture, natural resources, and the environment. Environmental education (EE) can help increase the environmental literacy of learners. In addition, using animals in the EE programs can help connect learners to the natural environment in their communities. Although there are several avenues for EE within Georgia (e.g., Georgia 4-H EE, Zoo Atlanta, GA Aquarium, 海角官方首页 Aquarium, etc.), many youths are unable to visit these programs or participate in them to further connect with the environment and increase their environmental literacy. Therefore, providing EE programming to youth at existing 4-H events could help increase youth's environmental literacy and provide a connection to nature for youth participants.
Environmental education programming utilizes a myriad of methods to reach an audience who are learners in formal, nonformal, and informal educational settings. Research has shown that effective environmental education may lie in entertaining, exciting programming: a delivery style that is not always possible in a formal school setting. Nature centers, zoos, and aquariums often provide programming either onsite and/or via traveling shows. Organizations such as FFA and 4-H provide venues where children can attend activities and learn more about the environment locally. A growing number of educators are now using some type of animal teaching tool (either living or non-living) to enhance the delivery of an environmental message. When animal ambassadors are used in nonformal educational settings, captive live animals can provide memorable, safe encounters with wildlife, increase the relevance of conservation issues, increase program attendance, and allow educators to link environmental messages to specific animal species.
In the spring of 2024, the McIntosh County 4-H Agent taught six herpetology workshop sessions at the Southeast District Junior Conference to provide animal-based EE for counties across Southeast Georgia. The workshop had a herpetological focus that contained live reptiles as animal ambassadors (e.g., snakes and turtles). The 4-H agent facilitated these workshops focusing on animal adaptations, conservation challenges, and ecological niches of native reptiles in Georgia. The 4-H agent conducted this program locally during spring in-school club meetings for approximately 300 fourth through seventh-grade students in McIntosh County. The reptile workshop was also offered to all McIntosh County community members through a summer program at the public library with about 60 community members ranging from toddlers to adults.
A total of 191 sixth through eighth-grade students from twenty-six counties participated in the Southeast District Junior Conference at the Camp Jekyll 4-H Center. The objective of the workshop was to introduce students to ecological adaptations and niches of native Georgia reptiles while also creating a positive interaction with live ambassador animals. The short-term outcome was to provide students with a live animal experience. Mid-term outcomes were to increase environmental literacy through acquiring knowledge of native reptile species. Long-term outcomes are to ultimately foster positive attitudes and behaviors about nature and wildlife through connection to nature.
An evaluation survey was distributed to all 191 participants to provide feedback on the workshop's content and experience. Out of those 191, 43 percent of students completed the survey. The survey consisted of a mixture of Likert scale questions along with open-ended responses. Students were asked if this was their first time touching or holding a snake or turtle, if they had a more positive attitude about reptiles after the workshop, if they gained more knowledge about reptile traits after the workshop, and what they felt was the most important thing they learned during the workshop. Out of the 82 respondents, fifteen percent had never held or touched a turtle or snake. On a rating scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), 76 percent of students somewhat agreed or strongly agreed that they had a more positive attitude about reptiles after participating in the workshop, and 78 percent of students somewhat agreed or strongly agreed that they felt more informed about reptile traits after the participating in the workshop.
Students commented that the most important thing they learned was:
? That there is a lot of different kinds of turtles that prefer very different climates and other things.
? How the traits of animals differ.
? That there are different types of animals that are alike but are still different in many ways like rat snakes.
? The characteristics and classification of reptiles is an important process.
? I learned about what a “niche” is, an organism's job/duty.
? That different animals have different traits that suits them.
? Every animal has unique characteristics that help them survive.
? The ability to handle animals in a respectful manner.
? That not all snakes are bad.
? Some snakes are good.
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Family and Consumer Sciences
The McIntosh County Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) Agent, Michelle Quick, assists in addressing real-life issues faced by Georgians of all ages. The agent provides programs and research-based information on nutrition and well-being, food and financial insecurity, healthy housing and environments, food safety, and preservation. Michelle travels throughout Glynn and McIntosh counties, partnering with local agencies to provide research-based education to community members and groups.??These groups can include (but are not limited to) HeadStart programs, local civic groups and churches, Coastal Pines Technical College, Job Corps, Gateway Behavioral Health, Sea Island, Ida Hilton Library, Parks and Recreation, local senior centers and support groups.?
During the 2024 program year, Michelle taught 32 adult programs, reaching 340 participants throughout Glynn and McIntosh County. Total youth reached through FACS programming totaled 86 participants through eleven different community and 4-H related programs.
Michelle Quick is also responsible for the management and oversight of the USDA NIFA grant-funded program, the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP). Suzanne Walker, EFNEP Program Assistant, spends her time in the community providing this free nutrition education series that teaches families how to stretch their food dollars, eat healthier meals and snacks, and reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses.
In 2024, EFNEP directly reached 168 adults, representing households of 524 individuals. Sixty-eight adult participants attended enough sessions of the Food Talk series to become program graduates. These EFNEP Graduates reported improvements in behaviors related to the core areas of EFNEP:
?Diet Quality:
·??50% increased fruit intake.
·?????????45% increased vegetable intake.
In 2024, EFNEP directly reached 122 youth with direct education sessions.
·?????????89 youth attended enough educational sessions to become program graduates.?
·?????????84% improved diet quality.
·?????????62% increased physical activity.
·?????????53% reduced the risk of foodborne illness.???
·?????????53% improved their ability to prepare simple, nutritious, and affordable food.
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