Winners of 2021 NADEE: New Jersey 4-H, From L to R: Carlee Roell, Chloee Roell, Annabelle Majorossy, Cait O’Sullivan and Jacquilin Kirby.
With COVID-19 preventing an in-person contest, organizers developed the North American Dairy Educational Experience (NADEE), where youth evaluate a scenario on a dairy operation and provide responses to prompts about the operation. One team per state could enter.
The winning team was from New Jersey and is part of the borrow-a-dairy heifer program facilitated by Hunterdon and Somerset County 4-H Dairy Programs. After receiving the scenario in September they had one week to research the content—without adult intervention— and then put together a two-page response quoting the information to support their answers, conducting the project entirely online.
Participating in the dairy scenario taught me how much goes on behind the scene on a dairy farm — Carlee Roell, Lebanon, NJ, 11th grade, 7th year in the dairy project.
What I learned from the dairy scenario was how much practical math it takes to keep the dairy operation running — Cholee Roell, Lebanon, NJ, 11th grade, 7years in the dairy project.
The dairy scenario experience taught me that farmers are some of the greatest problem solvers and that dairy cattle nutrition is a lot more complex than I would’ve thought — Annabelle Majorossy, Flemington NJ, 10th grade, 7th year in the dairy project.
Doing this scenario has helped deepen my knowledge into researching a farm on what they are doing good, and what they need to improve. All this knowledge will help me in the future when I’m working on the farm and being around dairy cattle — Cait O’Sullivan, Hillsborough, NJ, 10th grade, 7th year in the dairy project.
The dairy scenario contest, which was made of many pages of information, taught me how to use my critical thinking skills when figuring out how a farmer is feeding his dairy herd during a drought — Jacquilin Kirby, Hillsborough, NJ 11th grade, 8th year in the dairy project
‘This is an impressive achievement for these New Jersey 4-Hers. All the teams completed challenging scenarios focused on topics like dairy nutrition, animal health, and herd management. For a state with a very small dairy industry, these NJ teens proved there is a lot of talent coming up in the NJ ag industry ,” said Rachel Lyons, chair, Department of 4-H Youth Development.
This year, Michigan, New York, and Virginia also evaluated the scenarios and submitted their product.
