Renewing The Countryside 2026

For the second year, I volunteered with Renewing the Countryside at the Minnesota State Fair’s Eco Experience. The Eco Experience is one of the Fair’s most popular destinations, welcoming more than 210,000 visitors each year and creating a large public platform for environmental education.

This year, my volunteering focused specifically on the role birds play in agriculture and healthy ecosystems. I spent my time talking with fairgoers about birds and guiding them through an interactive game connecting crops, birds, prey, and the surrounding environment. Through the activity, visitors could explore how these different parts of an agricultural ecosystem depend on one another and how birds interact with insects, crops, habitat, and food webs.

One of my favorite parts of volunteering was getting to teach people of different ages through something hands-on. Instead of simply explaining an ecological relationship, the game allowed visitors to make the connections themselves. It reinforced the idea that agriculture is much more than what is planted in a field. Farms are ecosystems shaped by interactions among plants, animals, people, soil, water, and the surrounding landscape.

Returning for a second year was especially meaningful. My own work with agriculture has made me increasingly interested in these interconnected systems, and volunteering with Renewing the Countryside gives me an opportunity to share that curiosity with others while supporting sustainable agriculture, local food systems, and rural communities across Minnesota.