{"id":1645,"date":"2025-06-27T10:22:52","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T17:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/?p=1645"},"modified":"2025-06-27T10:22:52","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T17:22:52","slug":"osu-extension-intern-connects-with-communities-through-clean-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/2025\/06\/27\/osu-extension-intern-connects-with-communities-through-clean-water\/","title":{"rendered":"OSU Extension intern connects with communities through clean water"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi everyone!<br \/>\nMy name is Jackie Ruff, and I am a 4th-year environmental science major with an option<br \/>\nin chemistry and a minor in education. This is my 2nd summer doing the Extension internship. I<br \/>\nam working with the Groundwater Education Protection Program this summer, and I have been<br \/>\nworking with them for a year and 8 months now. I have done many projects with them and other<br \/>\nprograms, including water testing, educational classes and even helping plan the annual Small<br \/>\nFarms Conference.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1644\" class=\"wp-caption thumbnail alignnone\" style=\"width: 770px;\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1644\" src=\"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/3908\/files\/2025\/06\/doing-nitrate-screenings-at-the-Stayton-Farmers-Market-last-summer.-Photo-by-Chrissy-Lucas-1024x461.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"770\" height=\"347\" \/>\n    <figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jackie Ruff doing nitrate screenings at the Stayton Farmers Market last summer. Photo: Chrissy Lucas<\/figcaption>\n    <\/figure>\n<p>Over the past couple of months, we have been running our well testing program. In this<br \/>\nprogram, I have gotten to go throughout Benton, Linn, and Clackamas counties, meeting<br \/>\ndifferent well owners, testing their water and providing free educational materials on wells and<br \/>\nseptic systems to them. With this program, we were able to provide free well testing to 200<br \/>\nhouseholds in Benton County, 150 households in Clackamas County, and 100 households in<br \/>\nLinn County! I have really enjoyed working in this program as it directly relates to my career<br \/>\ngoals in science education. I am still figuring out what my exact career goals are, but working for<br \/>\nExtension Service has given me so much experience and many opportunities that I am so<br \/>\ngrateful for.<\/p>\n<p>I have also been working on scheduling many free nitrate screenings for us to do this<br \/>\nsummer. Over the summer, we visit farmers&#8217; markets and community events across 6 counties<br \/>\n(Linn, Lane, Benton, Marion, Polk, and Lincoln). At these events, we provide free nitrate<br \/>\nscreenings to well water owners. We also have a ton of free educational materials at these<br \/>\nevents. I have been busy scheduling, mailing and advertising for these events recently, and now<br \/>\nwe have a bunch on our calendar! Last summer, we did around 20 events. This summer, we<br \/>\nalready have 15 events scheduled, and we are not done scheduling them! I am hoping we can<br \/>\nget around 25-30 events on the calendar this summer. Doing these screenings was my favorite<br \/>\npart of last summer\u2019s internship, so I am very excited to have even more to do this summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi everyone! My name is Jackie Ruff, and I am a 4th-year environmental science major with an option in chemistry and a minor in education. This is my 2nd summer doing the Extension internship. I am working with the Groundwater Education Protection Program this summer, and I have been working with them for a year&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/2025\/06\/27\/osu-extension-intern-connects-with-communities-through-clean-water\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14884,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146,36],"tags":[271],"class_list":["post-1645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-groundwater-protection","category-lincoln-county","tag-jackie-ruff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14884"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1645"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1648,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1645\/revisions\/1648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/extintern\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}