Performing Department
Cooperative Extension
Non Technical Summary
As agriculture faces increasing challenges to provide nutrition for a growing population while the climate and society changes, the resiliency of the food system from producer to consumer is threatened. Young people should be engaged with the problems in their communities and need to be skilled in problem solving to support efforts in their communities. Arizona Cooperative Extension, 4-H Youth Development proposes Next Steps 4 Leadership: Campus, Career, and Community for Agricultural Resiliency (NS4L). NS4L is designed to provide 4-H youth with a higher education influenced 15-week experience to teach agriculture system knowledge, problem solving skills, and leadership. 4-H professionals will guide youth through problem-based learning focused on solo and team research, ideation, and presentation. Approximately 500 youth annually will develop and demonstrate solo and team-based problem-solving skills that will place innovative agricultural technology in a real-world context. Youth will explore technological solutions to problems within the food system and building comfort with agricultural technology use and adoption with community members.Approximately 228 youth will receive a scholarship to attend the Arizona 4-H Summit, where youth will be able to engage with faculty on the University of Arizonacampus. NS4L will be active in traditional, Spanish-speaking, and tribal 4-H communities helping inform what we know about high-quality engagement programming for these communities. To meet the challenges of programing during a pandemic and serve distant groups of youth, NS4L will be conducted as aface-to-face program with virtual programming adaptations available.Scaffolded support will be provided after NS4L concludes for youth to join 4-H teen focused programming in their communities (i.e., Arizona 4-H STEM and Agriculture Ambassadors).
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The Next Steps 4 Leadership program aims to address the need to buildhuman resource capacity for the agriculture industry by helping individuals demonstrate and encourage resiliency withinthe food system whetherproducer or consumer. Additionally, the program uses a positive youth development framework thus, the program aims to develop a thriving trajectory.Because of NS4L youth will be able to:1. Understand content necessary for interpreting food system resiliency challenges through guided inquiry of food system perspectives.2. Demonstrate independent higher education level research and critical thinking skills by developing a three-slide presentation presenting from a food system perspective within a localized context (1-food system concern, 2- proposed solution (agricultural technology), 3-steps and resources needed to address concern (i.e., invention or adoption)3. Demonstrate team-based collaborative research skills while completing a Youth led Participatory Action Research protocol (YPAR).4. Demonstrate essential workforce people skills through team-based collaborative innovation and promotion of strategies for building a more resilient food system.5. Take on leadership roles after completion and contribute civically using science-informed strategies based on individual sparks.Because of NS4L we will establish:1. A nationally recognized evidence-based program for youth seeking to take on leadership roles in the 4-H program and their communities to cultivate interest and build public confidence in the safe and enhanced use of technology in food and agricultural sciences.2. A nationally recognized evidence-based adapted and culturally responsive program designed for Latinx and AI/AN community youth.3. A nationally recognized research informed high quality and high context education program preparing youth who understand agricultural systems, the role of technology in those systems, and are able to communicate the importance to their peers and community members alike.
Project Methods
The new sciences of learning and development (Lerner et al., 2019) hold important implications for high-quality engagement to promote positive youth development. Supporting positive youth development can contribute to mitigating negative impacts.Problem based learning (PBL) is a theory-informed process used to reinforce knowledge construction as learners receive guidance in solving meaningful problems; even with limited understanding, learners activate prior knowledge that helps them prepare for learning (Hill & Schmutz, 2019; Schmidt et al., 1989). In the case of NS4L the learning is around how to address issues within the context of resilient agriculture systems and to deeply understand an agriculture system.Youth Involvement The entire NS4L program is designed to capitalize on the strengths of non-formal education, allowing youth to take their passion and explore the ramifications of technology and innovation within the context of real-world problems that they are facing in their community. NS4L prepares youth with knowledge about agricultural technology, prepares them with the skills needed to communicate that knowledge, and continue to grow in their ambassadorship. The Advisory Committee will include the Arizona 4-H State Ambassador Team (7 youth). These youth will advise on design, execution, and evaluation of activities that promote learning about agricultural technology.Outreach Materials DevelopmentThere are two levels of outreach achieved by the NS4L program. Youth who participate in theNS4L program (approximately 700youth annually), and the ancillary impact of the community who engage with the NS4L participants who are prepared with the skills of ambassadorship. The 4-H professionals will support youth prepare presentations and educational outreach so that they can present in the community on a research-informed topic of the youth's choice, this portion will generate 183 outreach materials and 183 outreach events hosted as a result from youth work during NS4L sessions. The 4-H professionals will design three original facilitator guides; two culturally responsive adapted curricula for American Indian and Alaskan Native and Spanish/Latinx communities; and, 32 educational support materials. The educational support materials will be used within the educational program andwill communicate the demonstrated benefits of agricultural technology, the safety record of the regulatory system, and how technology can address agricultural challenges. The NS4L ProgramUsing a higher-education class format, NS4L merges aspects of the higher-education setting with non-formal Extension education principles. The format conforms to the 4-H SPIN (Special Interest) club model, with a bounded length of time of approximately four-month/15-week-long and rigorous pre-determined topics. NS4L will be facilitated by extension professionals for the first year. The Cooperative Extension faculty/staff will facilitate youth content exploration, research development, as well as relationships between the youth and between themselves and youth. Youth participants will explore the role and opportunities of technology in resilient agriculture through the lens of food systems resilience, production agriculture, healthy living, and STEM perspectives. Topics will be introduced as a survey of topics. Youth will then choose topics to develop a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) methodology and action plan. Youth participants will be recruited into cohorts (average 15 youth) to participate in a four-month 15 weeklong educational experience (aka sessions). The NS4L educational experience (course) will be managed and run like a higher-education classroom with both structured content, assignments and discussion sessions. Class meetings will be 2-3-hour weekly sessions (either virtual or in-person) supported by asynchronous engagement. A combination of the Google Classroom and Zoom will be used for asynchronous opportunities. Class meetings of NS4L will begin by being instructor content driven and then transition to a problem-based learning; youth participants will lead and participate in small group and large group discussions. In addition to whole class engagement, the course will include several asynchronous requirements including video/resource review, interviews with key individuals, and preparing peer feedback. Youth participants in groups will explore the resilient agriculture aspect of their choice by preparing a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) methodology and action plan for future work after NS4L is completed. Youth groups will be connected to teen 4-H programming opportunities in their communities to support the completion of their YPAR project (i.e, STEM Ambassadors or Agriculture Ambassadors Club programs).EvaluationThe formative evaluation will use utilization-focused principles to engage participants and to provide regular feedback to help staff refine program activities (Patton, 2012). The 4-H Thriving Model Developmental Context instrument will be incorporated as a measure of whether the program demonstrates the elements of a high quality 4-H program (Arnold & Gagnon, 2018). Besides using traditional approaches, the evaluation will incorporate rapid appraisal techniques (e.g., activities such as drawing, mapping, and use of photographs) that allow for more engagement by youth participants in project and activity feedback (Zukoski & Luluquisen, 2002). The CRED team has experience in incorporating rapid appraisal techniques into youth-based activities through both the Arizona 4-H Summit, and through a 4-H/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded Well-Connected Community Grant that includes youth from the Hopi Tribe. The CRED team will develop and implement and collect formative evaluation data, which will be compiled into quarterly and annual reports. The evaluation team will also facilitate quarterly data interpretation sessions with youth, as part of their YPAR training and to inform program refinement with co-PIs, and will present bi-annual reports to the leadership team. As the project concludes, the evaluators will review, assess, and incorporate data to inform the summative evaluation, allowing for an overall assessment of project accomplishments in impacting youth leadership development, science literacy, and workforce and higher education readiness. Summative evaluation analyses will include testing the relationships predicated by the 4-H Thrive Model, that is, that the relationship between a high quality 4-H program (developmental context) on developmental outcomes is mediated by youth thriving (Arnold, 2018), and that the relationship between developmental context and youth thriving is moderated by the level of youth engagement in the program (Arnold & Gagnon, 2019). Fields (2020) drew the National 4-H movement to recognize the 4-H Thriving Model was validated with a primarily white population and called for additional work to be done to confirm transferability to non-white youth populations. This project will allow for that additional work.Formative and summative evaluation products will include:Rapid post-activity feedback reporting, plus brief bi-annual formative evaluation reports and presentations to the leadership team that integrates data from student engagement tracking and pre- and post-course feedback, to allow for timely improvements.Quarterly data interpretation sessions with leadership team.Bi-annual evaluation presentation to the leadership team.Annual report that summarizes evaluation-related activities and findings from the past 12 months, as well as results from youth and educator surveys, interviews and focus groups with staff, and administrative data review on participation and retention.Dissemination through Cooperative Extension networks, national conferences and peer-reviewed publications.