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On Saturday, April 19, our STEM Ambassadors represented Cooperative Extension at Princeton University’s Spring into Science. This event, coordinated by Princeton’s Office of Outreach, brought together 300+ youth from Mercer County for a day filled with science exhibits, demonstrations, and learning. The STEM Ambassadors joined the exhibitors for this fair and led activities for young learners and their parents. They engaged the audience with an interactive demonstration of MakeyMakey, a programmable circuit board highlighting simple circuitry. While supporting the efforts of Princeton University, the STEM Ambassadors educated the public on Rutgers Cooperative Extension and the outreach work that all our departments do.
On Saturday, April 27, eleven of our STEM Ambassadors joined us at Rutgers Day. Rutgers Day is held annually on the last Saturday in April at Rutgers University. First branded as “Rutgers Day” in 2009, this festival brings tens of thousands of festival-goers to campus; it is open to the public and offers more than 500 free programs featuring demonstrations, child-friendly interactive activities involving animals and plants, student performances, cultural traditions, food vendors, and live music. The STEM Ambassadors took in the festival while engaging and educating the public. The teens used a maze built from PVC piping to allow young kids to navigate through it using Sphero robots. The STEM Ambassadors also helped identify lab equipment and did a chemistry experiment with carbon dioxide to inflate balloons.
The day was filled with fun, activities, discovery, and exploration of new ideas as the 4-H youth engaged with other demonstrations throughout Busch Campus. Mercer County 4-H continues to provide opportunities like this to our youth to further develop their public presentation skills, nurture their spark, and give them a chance to highlight their work.