Each year, County Extension Agents dedicate many hours toward educational programs to serve clientele. One of the largest programs in 4-H is the youth livestock project. Livestock projects take a significant amount of time and there is a variety of programs offered to youth exhibitors. One of these educational programs offered though Texas Cooperative Extension is Quality Counts. Quality Counts focuses on teaching character education and quality assurance to youth livestock exhibitors. The purpose of this study was to determine the total number of youth livestock projects entered in Texas during 2006 and identify any apparent educational trends. The second objective of this study was to determine how Quality Counts is perceived by County Extension Agents. To complete this study, a web based survey was sent administered to every County Extension office in Texas. 250 of 254 counties responded to the survey (98.43% response rate). From data collected, it was revealed that there were a total of 89,839 total livestock projects entered in 2006 at the county level (76,225 market and 13, 614 breeding). This data was compared to a previous study completed in 2001 by Boleman, Howard, Smith, and Couch. This data compared market livestock entry numbers. Based upon the comparison, market livestock projects have increased by 7.06% since 2000. Beef cattle and goats have increased, while sheep and swine have slightly decreased. Roughly a third of Texas counties will be utilizing the Quality Counts curriculum during the year 2007. Qualitative analysis reveals that Quality Counts is seen as educationally useful and easy to implement into traditional livestock educational programming, and is most often used as part of ongoing project clinics. Most importantly, program participants are increasing their knowledge of livestock projects, character, and ethics. Respondents are also beginning to see program participants’ behaviors change because of participating in Quality Counts.

A Study Of Texas Youth Livestock Exhibitors Knowledge Within The Constructs Of The Quality Counts Assessment. (August 2013) J. D. Ragland, B.S., M. S. Chairman of Advisory Committee: Dr. Steve Fraze. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the current Quality Counts program and assessment. This on-line training and assessment is a required program of completion for all youth exhibiting livestock at all major livestock shows in Texas. The studies additional purposes was to evaluate assessment results of participants within their respected age groups and club affiliation, and to identify their relationships of the four program objectives as well as the three research objectives outlined for this study to determine where curriculum improvements maybe needed. It was concluded that the Quality Counts program needs revision to be a more effective tool for youth exhibiting livestock.

Experimental results indicated that dolomite dissolution rates increased in all the acid solutions as the disk rotational speeds increased at 150, 200, and 250˚F. The dissolution of dolomite in 0.886 M GLDA was found to be surface-reaction limited at lower temperatures and mass-transfer limited at highest temperature. GLDA with the lowest reaction rates and relative diffusion coefficient demonstrated retardation before spending with deeper penetration capability for productivity and injectivity improvement. The purpose of this study was to analyze the Texas Quality Counts Verification Exam for junior and senior aged 4-H and FFA members. The Texas Quality Counts program was developed due to a need for teaching livestock ethics and care to the youth of Texas and it strives to teach youth how to produce a safe and wholesome livestock product for the consumer. An analysis of youth scores between 2011 and 2012 was done to determine how well youth were scoring on the Texas Quality Counts Verification Exam. Out of the 91,733 attempts, 18,204 were taken by juniors and 73,572 were taken by seniors. Junior level attempts show a fairly even spread among self-identified membership in 4-H and FFA, while senior level attempts saw a much greater spread in membership, with 73% of attempts taken by youth who identified themselves as a member in FFA. Overall, 78% of junior level youth were able to pass the exam on their first attempt, and showed a range of mean attempts between 1.13 and 1.47 based on age. Senior level youth, on the other hand, had only 47% pass on their first attempt and had a range of mean attempts between 2.21 and 2.54 based on age. The means of scores on the exam were calculated for juniors and seniors, with 0.85 and 0.71 respectively. To determine if there were any differences in scores between self-identified membership in 4-H, FFA, or both 4-H and FFA, a oneway ANOVA for junior and senior members was conducted. Both junior and senior age groups showed a significant difference between the three membership categories (p=0.001).