Animal Sciences Youth Exploration Day

On August 8, 2022, the Department hosted the NDSU Animal Sciences Youth Exploration Day! This event was put on by Kiersten Gundersen, an Animal Sciences PhD Graduate Research Assistant. The goal of this event was to educate and expose students between the ages of 6 and 13 to animal and meat science.

Students and teachers from the Barnesville Summer School Program participated in three stations throughout the day. The first station was a guided animal tour where students were exposed to mini horses from Bison Strides, sheep from the Sheep Unit, dairy calves from the Dairy Unit, and beef heifers from the Beef Unit. Each manager from the units gave a 15-minute talk to students about what these animals were and the uses the animals had in the livestock and meat industry. The second activity was breakfast sausage and homemade butter making. Meat Lab staff instructed the students on how to make the breakfast sausage. After this, Kiersten and the Barnesville teachers assisted the students on how to make homemade butter. The final activity was the burger grilling competition. Students were placed into teams of 3 or 4 and were given the basic ingredients to create their own burger. Students had to come up with a creativity name and be able to explain what and why certain ingredients were used. Judges were tasked with placing teams based upon creative name, best tasting, and overall best burger.

Big thanks to Kiersten and all the Department staff who helped to make this day a huge success!