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The Junior Hokie Showcase highlights the various methods agriculture, science, and expertise intersect to form the world round us.New River TodayHundreds of fourth-grade college students from throughout the New River Valley just lately attended the 4-H Junior Hokie Showcase at Virginia Tech, the place they explored interactive reveals on subjects starting from animal science and wildlife to drone expertise and precision agriculture. The occasion aimed to broaden college students’ understanding of the various industries that help their communities whereas additionally exhibiting how educational topics like math and science have real-world purposes.
Why it issues
Events just like the Junior Hokie Showcase are designed to spark early curiosity in STEM fields and agriculture-related careers, that are essential for the way forward for Virginia’s financial system and communities. By introducing college students to these subjects in an enticing, hands-on manner, the showcase hopes to encourage the following era of scientists, farmers, and pure useful resource stewards.
The particulars
During the full-day occasion, college students rotated by quite a lot of interactive stations overlaying subjects equivalent to animal science, wildlife, pure sources, precision agriculture, and educational applications at Virginia Tech and Virginia Cooperative Extension. At one cease, they encountered sheep and pigs up shut and realized about their care and well being. At one other, they explored how drones, GPS, and different applied sciences are altering fashionable farming. Other stations highlighted tree identification, wildlife statement, and the various profession paths obtainable in agriculture and pure sources.
- The Junior Hokie Showcase came about on April 6, 2026.
The gamers
Morgan Paulette
A Virginia Cooperative Extension agent who demonstrated drone methods and security with college students and lecturers.
Meredith Hoggatt
A Montgomery County Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension agent who fielded questions on flower biology.
Case Keatley
A author for Virginia Cooperative Extension who coated the occasion.
Virginia Tech
The college that hosted the Junior Hokie Showcase at its Alphin-Stuart Livestock Teaching Arena.
Virginia Cooperative Extension
The group that partnered with Virginia Tech to placed on the academic occasion for native college students.
What they’re saying
“Events like Junior Hokie Showcase are about much more than a single field trip. They are designed to broaden students’ understanding of the industries that help feed, fuel, and sustain communities while also showing them that those industries are full of opportunity.”
— Case Keatley, Writer, Virginia Cooperative Extension
What’s subsequent
The Junior Hokie Showcase is an annual occasion, so the following version is scheduled to happen in April 2027 at Virginia Tech.
The takeaway
The Junior Hokie Showcase demonstrates how hands-on, interactive studying can encourage college students to discover STEM fields and agriculture-related careers which can be very important to the way forward for Virginia’s communities. By exposing younger learners to the real-world purposes of their classroom research, the occasion goals to domesticate the following era of scientists, farmers, and pure useful resource stewards.