An Evaluation of the Livestock 101 Educational Exhibit at the State Fair of Texas

The need to produce enough food to feed the world is met with a quickly growing world population and new perspectives of agriculture amongst consumers, creating a divide from producer to purchaser. Consumers no longer have a direct tie to agriculture, therefore limiting hands-on experience and allowing consumers to form opinions based on often-misleading claims. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a State Fair of Texas educational exhibit, Livestock 101, on being a unique and influential learning tool in a unique environment. We concluded that while Livestock 101 did not prove to produce notable differences amongst fairgoers’ knowledge of agriculture, there is a potential for improvement that could lead to influence, and it did produce notable differences on fairgoers’ perceptions of agriculture. We also determined there are three primary reasons for attending the State Fair of Texas, and one of those is visiting the animals on the fairgrounds. Therefore, it was concluded that there is a desire to be more involved with agriculture and the animals amongst fairgoers, and there is a potential for influence on fairgoers that could be met by the Livestock 101 experience