Category: Cooperative Extension
Continuing Extension’s mission in a virtual world
January 27, 2021 Written by Katie Young
In January 2020, UD Cooperative Extension had just wrapped up another successful Delaware Agriculture Week. This annual multi-day event hosted participants from throughout the state seeking knowledge, management credits and networking opportunities. At the time, an avian coryza outbreak had just made local news, sending the week’s poultry presenters and event organizers into a whirlwind of last-minute event changes. Looking back, however, this experience was only a taste of what was to come.
UD Cooperative Extension’s mission is to create, adapt and share important knowledge with Delawareans. So after COVID-19 was discovered in the First State in March, Extension needed to adjust to this changing landscape — and quickly!
County director and extension educator Maria Pippidis recalls this as a time of both stress and opportunity: “Once COVID hit and we knew that things would close and that people would lose jobs, incomes and health insurance, I became ultra aware of how much Cooperative Extension could help. Some of the programming could be helpful for people who are facing those kinds of challenges.”
Rising to the occasion, UD Extension had launched a comprehensive COVID-19 resource webpage before the end of March. Eighty-nine resources from governmental and Extension services nationwide were featured — 15 of which were written by UD Extension staff. Whenever possible, translations were made available in four languages. Between March and November of last year, this web page received more than 2,700 visitors!
Going virtual
Extension’s most significant challenge was adapting planned programming to the digital landscape. How could hundreds of programs, courses and in-person events move online?
“We entered the year 2020 thinking that we were going to be offering these programs in-person,” explains Carrie Murphy, a UD Extension Agent whose work largely centers around ornamental horticulture and gardening. “Our team successfully shifted and thought about how the programs could be repackaged and offered virtually. Master Gardener volunteers across the state offered a variety of programs related to lawns and gardens across all three counties; we moved workshops and presentations online and we had a tremendous response.”
Naturally, financial and stress management programs were among the first courses offered. “We’re really pleased to, in a very short amount of time, put out digital programming that was helpful to people,” said Pippidis. “Everybody really tried to pitch in and be available because all of us were aware of how important addressing these topics were.”
There was a bit of a technological learning curve, however. Ensuring that instructors and participants both understood the new technology was of the utmost importance to program leaders like associate scientist Emmalea Ernest: “I think that our group is really working to make the information and the content accessible… [We’re] willing to work with people who are having trouble on the technology side, just trying to make things as easy as possible.”
Successful online test programs helped build confidence in the new digital approach. County director and extension agent Susan Garey helped launch an exciting Weekly Webinar Series on small ruminants: “Limin Kung, our Extension Dairy Specialist, volunteered to be the first to pilot the series. We had such a good reception of that program that we went ahead with the rest of it at that point in time.” The series, developed along with Delaware State University’s Kwame Matthews and fellow UD extension agent Dan Severson, also led to some surprising results.
“Many more people outside of our region became interested in what we had to offer than we ever expected,” noted Garey. “We had people from across the country and even from Hawaii, Canada and Mexico participate.”
Throughout the spring, summer and fall of 2020, UD Extension offered more than 330 online courses to more than 5,600 participants. More than 50 of these programs were recorded and published online, building a new repository of free programming on health, wellness, financial management, gardening, animal husbandry and more.
UD Cooperative Extension’s mission is to create, adapt and share important knowledge with Delawareans.
Camping out
One of Extension's largest audiences is Delaware's 4-H youth! Between upsets in school, at home and in their clubs, local 4-H members were significantly impacted by the changes accompanying COVID-19. To bring 4-H'ers “together” in a time of isolation, program staff and leaders developed safe and creative alternatives to typical programming.
4-H youth development educator Kaitlin Klair noted a few significant differences between the other Extension programs and working with children in-person.
“[Being] able to do activities that are engaging and that they can do [with their hands] was probably one of the hardest things,” explained Klair. “When you're online, it's a hurdle to try to make sure that people have the supplies and everything they need. Because you don't know what their home environments are.”
The virtual versions of 4-H summer camps were a massive hit. Participants were thrilled to see their camp friends, catch up with their 4-H leaders and engage in camp activities — even online!
"Our biggest success was the engagement and excitement of the kids!” emphasized Klair. “They hadn’t been to school, they hadn't been to 4-H [in-person] programming for the last four months and they were just excited to see their friends.”
Between March and November 2020, Delaware 4-H moved 47 programs online, drawing more than 7,000 participants, and provided socially-distanced versions of six programs, including the annual archery tournament and judging contests.
The massively-popular two weeks of Delaware 4-H State Camp saw more than 150 virtual attendees and an additional ten county-specific camps served 173 campers!
“Having a structured camp to attend gave them something to do and then it helped out the parents, too,” said Klair.
Moving forward
The global pandemic was a devastating curveball, but UD Extension’s staff, faculty, volunteers and partners made the best of a bad situation — learning new best practices along the way. Traditional in-person programming isn’t going anywhere. It will return as soon as health safety rules permit. But the pandemic taught Extension how to create and execute more online programming.
“I really like that we've been able to record and post our programs so that if you can't be there in the moment, in real-time, you're able to access those resources later,” reflected Murphy. “That skill is definitely something that will continue to develop.”
Learn more about UD Extension at udel.edu/extension.