As we near the prime season of 4-H activities this summer, we wanted to showcase an event that provides competition for youth interested in the dairy industry. The Michigan Youth Dairy Quiz Bowl is an interactive event for hundreds of 4-H members that took place on July 14 in St Johns at the AgroLiquid North Central Research Farm. It is a state-wide, annual event held in conjunction with the Michigan 4-H and Youth Dairy Expo.
Students can prepare for this quiz bowl all year long; test questions and practice materials are provided by Virginia Tech and other universities, which allows the students to study and bring their “A” game for the competition. For the event, the students are almost always put in groups with others from their county to form a team, but some counties form a team together if there aren’t enough students.
For the competition itself, there are three levels: the novice (ages 8-11), junior (ages 9-14), and senior (ages 15-19). These competitions are all run the same, except for this year, there was a written test for the junior and senior levels in order to seed them into brackets. The teams for each level are split up into 3-4 people, where they are competing against one other team at a time.
The moderator starts them off with true and false questions, and then they move into “toss-up,” or open-ended questions for the teams to answer. At the end of each round, there are bonus questions for the teams to collaborate on to encourage teamwork, which are only given if a team has a certain number of correct answers. Within this event, there are moderators who ask the questions, timekeepers who reset the clock and make sure students are staying on track, and judges who make sure the students’ answers are correct and that they are receiving the correct knowledge about dairy. All questions are about the dairy industry.
Allison Pung, a GreenStone Credit Analyst, participated in the quiz bowl for ten years and was able to come back and volunteer as a timekeeper for the first time this year. “It was a great experience to go back and learn more about the industry, as well as catch up with some of the industry leaders who I knew while I competed in this event in my 4-H years,” states Allison.
GreenStone was a proud sponsor for several 4-H events this year, including the Michigan Youth Dairy Quiz Bowl. Providing knowledge to the younger generations is key for the agriculture and dairy industries to succeed in the future.
For more information about the event, visit: Michigan Youth Dairy Quiz Bowl.
