Progress 09/01/14 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:USDA Extension grant reached community youth (K-12 students), Elders, and youth. Blackfeet Community College students and community members ofthe Blackfeet Reservation worked together on a variety of projects. These included tree planting, school gardens, coloring books and community gardening classes. This work within the public school system led to more interest in our program. In addition, we got better at promoting our events through newspaper and radio. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Professional development comes in many forms. We strive to put our students on an educational path to success. The internships lead to student projects and travel oppourtunities to showcase their work. They become mentors for younger students. We attend various trainings and professional development classes that help us build lasting curriculum and projects that impact our community. I've earned a Agribusiness certification here at BCC, completed Beginning Farmer and Racher training and met many of our current partners at conventions. We work hard to get our skills to local schools and events as outreach for our gardening classes. We include the community in planning and offer gardening classes during the school year and hands on training in our gardening area during the growing season. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? We reached out to the schools on the reservation and expanded gardening on BCC campus. Hosting gardening classes and teching basic growing skill in an outdoor, greenhouse and classroom setting. Also, we made important upgrades to our facilities. The new greenhouse is operational while we repaired the off-grid biodome. This gives us a place to display renewable energy and helped with outreach. Most important, we had a place to grow seeds and another building for plants to mature before putting them in the garden. We are now hiring more interns and hosting more classes as our infrastructure grows. An admin/technical assistant was added to help with greenhouse projects. Our Interns will continue to help develop various growing and irrigation systems. Each year we plan to grow and learn from previous successes and shortcomings. These accomplishments are shared with the community through the school system, on the airwaves and through flyers. We attend events to promote our classes and work with citizens in different area of the reservation. This includes the nursing home and the soup kitchen. Outreach plays an important role in recruiting future students and building community health. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
First, the garden provided a place for the community to learn the skills necessary to grow food at home. We conneceted tribal members with student mentors who contine to learn from growers and producers on the Blackfeet reservation. We continue to help various schools and community members develop gardens of their own. Outreach to community members of various ages started with developing a coloring book for kids, feild trips to various locations and CEU classes that build on knowledge from previous years. For instance, our basic gardening class in the sping is followed up by hands on training in the summer. Volunteers help us during the growing season. Educational resources include attending stock producer meetings, providing them with support and many of ideas were implemented into the Blackfeet Agricultural plan. We visited farms that had invasive species and continue to help farmers with questions and outreach. Our Greenhouses are both functional and we continue to keep water and electrical and plumbing systems going from April- October. We doubled the size of our growing area by the end of the grant cycle. Sustainable energy projects were also part of our focus. Part of our harvest supplied a local farmers market and fed students and staff. The College is developing a sustainable Agriculture program and our focus will also be on Beginning Farmer and Rancher curriculum. Our work was documented in a short film and we are learning more each year. Weather has been drastically different each summer and we are learning to adapt with were we plant trees and crops. We are developing different watering and irrigations systems. We plan to be a model for other TCU's and will be partnering with a variety of Tribal programs, NGO's and Land Grant Colleges on future projects.
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Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audience was community members that may not have access to healthy food, students interested in building sustainable growing systems and those interested in learning about native plants and traditional growing systems. We were able to work with various non profit and volunteer groups, with Blackfeet youth and with elders who passed on plant knowlwdge. Our goal is to transform our interns into mentors for the community. Changes/Problems:One major change is that we are now aquiring the equipment to expand our growing capactty to better meet the needs of the community.Access to healthy food and the kmowledege of how to grow and prepare itare at the forefront. We have aquired a walk behind tractor and an on-line library of growing classes. In addition, planning for the growing season will continue to improve in year 3 of my service. As we build on knowledgebase &expand operations Extension will better serve this community. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Food Saftey Training, NAI intrepreter training, We worked with the BCC begining Farm and Ranch program ona fence project. We worked with the State of Montana to plant hundreds of trees om campus and with Alt energy program to keep our Greenhouses running. In many cases we provided saftey classes and training for these activities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Community members who have worked with us have better access to healthy food. They have had oppourtunity to participate in free classes and learn how to garden, plant and harvest traditional plants. Dissemination of the activities and our successes have come through flyers, workshops and word of mouth. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?I believe with each year we look at our accomplishments and shortcomings to better our action plan and increase our output. During the next reporting period I hope to offer more classes and have greater participation in commumity building events.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
We held Gardening workshops with Browning youth helped us get thousands of seeds planted and trees were distributed to the community. Our CAB meeting helped us define the needs of local farmers and we hosted gardening classes for the community with mastergardeners. We built relationships to help with Commumity gardens in the future in Browning and Cut Bank. We also attended food saftey classes that enabled us to safely process our vegetables for consumption and studied Native plants on the reservation. In nearbyGlacier Park we worked with rangers and the Park nursery.We also had to make adjustments due to climate change to our growing/harvesting season.
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Progress 09/01/16 to 08/31/17
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audience is public school age children, K-12 grades. Community people interested in gardening. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Workshops for the community to expand their knowledge in gardening, how to take care of a garden, soil types, pests, natural plants, etc. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have not provided results of the workshops to the community. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to follow the goals and objectives of the Extension Program for 2917-18.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The Extension program has used student interns to work with community members to start gardens and help community members take care of gardens. Workshops were held on gardening and plant identification. Te Extension program has worked with the Blckfeet and Glacier County extension programs to provide educational resources and contacts for farmers and ranchers in the community.
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Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/16
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audience for the USDA Extension grant are the community youth (pre-k to higher education) and community members on the Blackfeet Reservation. USDA Extension feels that we can make the greatest impact on our youth to ensure that they understand the importance of caring for the land and understanding how the natural world works around us. Changes/Problems:The USDA Extension Program feels that working with the youth throughout the Blackfeet Reservation will have the greatest impacts so we are focusing on working with the youth more than adults. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?USDA Extension Provided education on gardening and care of plants while working with the public andprivate schools throughout the Blackfeet Reservation. We also provide education while participating at the People Markets because of the large number of people and participants who attend these activities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?USDA Extension relies on the communty member to share the inforamtion they have learned from us to tell others, we work in alot most of the communities througout the reservation. In the summer we participate in the youth days in Browning, MT and Heart Butte, MT so we make contact with both the youth and adults. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Working with communities partners has proven to be the most successful way to accomplish goals that were set through the USDA Extension program, so more community partnership to help reach more of the USDA Extension goals.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
USDA Extension program worked with Browning public school Kindergarten and first grade students on healthy eating and nutrition education, the program worked with all 100+ kindergarten and first grade students each Friday during specials until we meet with each classroom. Partnered with the Browning Public Schools to help provide soil, seeds and planting containers as our effort to help them with their community garden. Partnered with Babb Schools to help them build a raisedbed and donated spinach plants the school and the students are responsible for maintaining and caring for the garden. Heart Butte Schools is also partnering with USDA Extension program to build a community garden on school property for the summer school program to maintain and care for. The Extension program provided all the starter plants and materials for the garden and will be working them throughout the summer in Heart Butte. USDA Extension has also been donating old raisedbeds build down at the greenhouse to individual who want to garden without growing directly in the ground. The Cuts Woods Blackfeet Alternative Schools we provided starter plants and did nutrition education with the schools. USDA Extension program interns worked with the Backpack program at Browning Public Schools to collect food items during winter break 2015 to ensure students had meals when school was out for two weeks. USDA Extension program works with the Food Hunger Coalition to talk about food sovereignty and what we can do to help our community have access to healthy fresh produce. Participating in Peoples Markets at Blackfeet Community College providing starter plants to interested individual who want to garden and we provide garden education so that people can grow produce successfully. Hosted a student lead initiative conference in April which the USDA Extension students presented on projects we have been doing throughout the community, there were three presentations done by the student interns. Other departments had students doing presentations on work or research they are doing throughout the Blackfeet Reservation. Presented to the entire 7th grade class at the Winter Camp buffalo pasture on Blackfeet Calendar stick, and student interns presented on the Buffalo box and buffalo bone scavenger hunt as apart of the annual activity with the Browning Public Schools. USDA Extension program also presented to the entire 8th grade class from Browning Middle school on fire ecology out a Mittens Lake. Participated in the 2016 Buffalo Day honoring bringing back the buffalo from Elk Island heard from Canada back to the Blackfeet Reservation, presentations were given to pre-k to 12th grade students on the parts and uses of the buffalo. Interns also presented on the buffalo run and told stories of different harvesting methods. USDA Extension has their community garden that we maintain throughout the summer to provide produce to interested parties.
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Progress 09/01/14 to 08/31/15
Outputs
Target Audience:My target audience for the USDA Extension grant are the community youth (pre-k to higher education) and adults from communities on the Blackfeet Reservation with extension efforts and activities. Workshops, experiential learning opportunities, internships will be offered to students who attend Blackfeet Community College to help provide these services. There are 906 farmers and ranchers on the Blackfeet reservation, 491 are Native American. Out of the 906 operators; 623 are male and 283 are female. These include 353 male and 138 female operators that are Native Americans. BCC's Extension program will be working with farmers and ranchers to providing education and outreach activities specifically geared toward meeting their educational needs on global climate change, agri-business, promotion of energy conservation and food sustainability. Changes/Problems:I changed the amount of inters that I have and the amount of time the interns work for the USDA Extension program which has benefited the program by being able to get into classroom earlier for education programs and being able to get planting in the greenhouse earlier in the year to supply gardeners with starter plants and get starter plants in BCC's garden and raisedbeds. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The USDA Blackfeet Reservation Community Meeting held in Browning, MT. Planning the gardening workshop and bio-weed control workshop to be held in July.Successful Agriculture: Tools to Improving your Operation conference in Billings, MT were I took rancher participants. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Information on outreach activiteis wassent to local gas stations, grocery stores and post offices that are located on the Blackfeet Reservation to get awareness out for people living these communities about the workshops and trainings that are provided. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Continue to follow the project narrative and summary to meet the proposed goals and projects and learn what is working for the program and see what we can do to imporve outreach education and activities.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Outreach activities have been done in the community with classroom visits from USDA Extension Director and Interns within Browning Public Schools were students from Kindergarten and First grade planted fruits and vegetables. Garden and plant lessons were given during the planting activity there was roughly 120 kindergarten students and 120 first grade students we served. The annual Browning Middle School cultural field day was in May where 90 students went to the Blackfeet Tribal Bison Ranch and the USDA Extension Director and Interns gave presentations on Bison the modern and traditional Blackfeet uses. Took ranchers to the Successful Agriculture: Tools to Improving your Operation conference in Billings, MT and helped plan part of the USDA Blackfeet Reservation Community Meeting that was held in Browning, MT. Currently working with Browning public schools and their VISTA to get the community garden established summer 2015. Expanded our growing operation at BCC new raised beds were purchased to have success in growing mature plants and this is working along with planting in the ground which is being effected by Richardson's ground squirrel. Working on setting up gardening and bio weed control workshop. The first People Market will be held at Blackfeet Community College so outreach will be provided on gardening and information on the farm bill and programs will be shared with farmers and ranchers who participate. Starter plants will be available to interested individuals in gardening at the People's Market.
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