Progress 09/01/23 to 08/31/24

Outputs
Target Audience:Agriscience Technology Pathways (ATP) addresses the shortage of youth entering agriculture careers related to data science, artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, genetics, and biotechnology. ATP aims to foster interest, agriculture literacy, and STEM skills, through real-life experiences in agriculture innovation. The project has increased (Ag. STEM) learning and access to youth to attend the State Teen Association Convention, State 4-H LEAD Summit, 4-H Summer Camps, the National 4-H Ignite Summitand more. In its first year, ATP has served 1,123 with Ag. STEM Programming.The demographic of youth reached are as followed: 720 female 401 male 10 other 39 Native American 7 Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 7 Black/African American 491 White/Caucasian 5 Two or more/other 26 Hispanic/Latino 548 Underdetermined Changes/Problems:The major challenges encoutered during this last year were mentioned in the previous question regarding what you plan to do to reach goals for the comming year. Most of those centered on increasing the number of participating counties (4-H professionals) in ATP programming activities and getting participating counties to accurately report the number of youth served. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?ATP has supported the training of 56 4-H professionals and volunteers in AgRobotics and Ag. Literacy Kits. AgRobotics is a new program in Idaho that resulted from two 4-H professionals attending a training at Texas A&M. Once trained the two were able to furnish robots and materials to participating counties through the ATP grant and other funding sources. Some 4-H professions and volunteers were trained on the Dairy Science Learning Kit that was piloted by Matt Fisher and is now in the process of getting published. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Outreach activities through ATP are communicated through the 4-H network of emails to families, volunteers, and professionals and county and state newsletters. In addition, targeted communication engages 4-H programs that serve underrepresented populations such as the Military Partnership, Juntos, and the Tribal 4-H Programs. University of Idaho Impact Reports were written for participating ATP activities such as the Idaho 4-H LEAD Summit, the State Teen Association Convention. Those impact reports can be found on university's website: https://www.uidaho.edu/extension/about/impacts What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?This first year has provided ample challenges that will be address this coming year. Although county 4-H programs are eligible for ATP funds to support youth registration costs and transportation to overnight camps if they offer AgSTEM learning opportunities to youth, there were only two counties that participated. We had anticipated at least 10 counties when we had written the grant proposal. The PI and coPI will be marketing this ATP partnerships with camps to 4-H professionals through meetings, flyers, and more to increase the number of ATP offerings at camps in 2025. One of the Tribal 4-H Programs lost their 4-H Educator which curtailed the level of programming originally planned for that target audience. The position is likely to be fill at the beginning of 2025. This will require the PI to reach out and build a rapport with the new faculty member to ensure full participation in ATP. The AmeriCorps program reaches nearly 10,000 youth each year through 25+ interns. Although interns are trained to deliver AgSTEM activities, once they are placed in the county 4-H Program, its up to the local 4-H coordinator to decide what types of programming will be offered to youth through afterschool, camps, and special interest programs. Again, the PI and CoPI's will need to market and encourage count 4-H professionals to deliver ATP activities and report on the number of youth served. Youth served through ATP activities was largely under reported this past year. The AgRobotics Program reached 46 youth from participating Counties. For the coming year, the goal is to double the number of participating youth. This will take more workshops to youth to grow the interest as well as marketing to 4-H professionals across the state. Roughly half of the youth reached were from ATP activities offered at county fairs and county Ag Days. There was no demographic data collected during these events as participants must self-report. Some counties may pilot a demographic collect strategy where youth (or their parent) self-report by dropping a bean in a cup labeled with the gender, race, and ethnicity. These large scale activities serve a higher level of diversity than other deliver modes, makes collecting the data critical to meeting goals to serve underrepresented audiences.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In 2023, Idaho 4-H launched the 4-H LEAD Summit. The objective of LEADS is to challenge youth in supportive ways to encourage them to learn, grow and improve their leaderships skills through various workshops ranging from drones, robots, Agriscience, art and more. Held over a weekend in the fall, 4-H LEADS is open to youth in grades 8 through 12 from all delivery modes (Club, Camp, Afterschool, In-School, Military Partnership, Juntos, etc.). This new program promotes sparks, belonging and relationships while empowering Youth Voice to lead change within their 4-H club, school and/or community. With an emphasis on leadership development, the program provides learning and teaching opportunities for teens in the areas of agricultural sciences, health & well-being, STEM and expressive arts. For three days, dedicated volunteers and UI Extension 4-H professionals worked directly with youth to help positively impact youth participation by giving them the opportunity to lead. LEADS was planned with youth voice and choice in mind. By working with other motivated participants, youth chose their areas of interest and took what they learned to implement in their counties and community. To determine if LEADS was successful and a quality program, we used the 4-H Thriving Model evaluation instrument which identifies and predicts specific factors influencing program quality. Data was collected from 53 of 75 youth who participated. The Developmental Context Instrument measures the extent to which youth experience spark, sense of belonging and developmental relationships with adults in the program. Data is determined as follows: Very low-quality experience = 1.0 to 2.2 Low quality experience = 2.3 to 3.5 Moderately quality experience = 3.6 to 4.8 High quality experience = 4.9 to 6.1 Very high-quality experience = 6.1 to 7.0 According to the data, LEADS was perceived as a very high-quality program with an overall developmental context score of 6.13 which is a significant predictor of Youth Thriving and Positive Youth Developmental Outcomes. Thriving youth are developing the skills to be beyond ready for work and life. The Ag. STEM workshops were highly rated by youth. The LEAD Summit was ranked the highest quality of the statewide teen programs. The ATP Program partners with the College of Southern Idaho (CSI) to offer Career Academy (day camps) through the summer. Themed Academies on Agriculture, Modern Manufacturing, and Computer Science reached 147 youth. Grant funds were used to provide transportation for field trips and to provide access to youth who did not have transportation to and from the CSI campus. Although an evaluation tool was made available, there was a very low response rate. We have discussed with CSI collaborators on how we can improve the response rate next year. The responses that were submitted were rated high. With support from the ATP Program, the Idaho 4-H State Teen Association Convention held at the end of June each year garnered more Ag. STEM workshops and career exploration field trips. Participants submitted rankings on workshops using a scale of 1-5 on six questions related to their experience. Topping the list were Agriculture Science and Technology related workshops with the class average rating out of 30 possible points: Livestock Vet Medicine 29.4 Heart Function and Anatomy 27.2 Decoding DNA 27.2 Forestry 101 27 Engineering for Disasters 26.3 Let's Plant for Pollinators 26 Wonders of Water 24.3 Fun with LED's 23.4 Idrone 21 Power of Data Science 19.3 In its first year, ATP reached 1,123 youth through the following outreach activities: 548 County Fair and Ag. Days youth AgSTEM activities 267 State and National 4-H Conferences 157 Camps 35 Afterschool Programs 46 AgRobotics 70 Special Interest

Publications