Iowa State Extension and Outreach Week is an annual event hosted by the Extension and Outreach Department of Iowa State. It is being hosted this year from April 12 to April 17.

This week includes events held all across Iowa, with events taking place in all 99 counties and being held both on and off campus.

Iowa State Extension and Outreach Vice President John Lawrence describes the department as “one of the three legs of the university, taking the knowledge from the research division and spread it to people across the state through informal education.”

These events include educational meetings or field days, 4-H clubs, after-school camps and many other activities offered by the 100 offices across Iowa. These events hope to apply the knowledge of the research department of Iowa State to the public through informal education.

Although Lawrence said “most of our work is off campus,” the extension and outreach department still has a plethora of resources for students, such as informal classes about family finance, personal finance, nutrition and a variety of other topics. Students can also become involved by joining the university’s 4-H Club.

Additionally, Lawrence said students can become involved with the department through working for the department like paid internships. These internships entail students going to a county and working with the county’s office to work on tackling a problem such as child care or food development. 

Lawrence said he hopes Extension and Outreach Week can “remind people there is research-based information available in their community.”

Extension and Outreach Week is an opportunity to celebrate the work the extension and outreach department does and to remind Iowans that Iowa State is in their community.

However, like many departments, the extension and outreach department has had to make changes due to the pandemic.

“A lot of our work went virtual […] A lot of webinars instead of in person,” Lawrence said.

Even with a bulk of their programs going virtual due to the pandemic, the department still held events in person and socially distanced.

Examples of these adaptations were the prop tv and online 4-H, such as 4H-at-home lesson plans and other resources parents could pick up curbside.

“One example we did is prop tv, which was 45 hours of webinars over a 10-week period that people could watch live or asynchronous,” Lawrence said.

Students who want to learn more about the outreach week should go to the outreach and extension website or check what is going on in their home county.