Source: RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY submitted to
FOOD & AGRICULTURE & MARINE (FAME) 4-H TECH PROGRAM
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
ACTIVE
Funding Source
AFRI COMPETITIVE GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1031339
Grant No.
2023-67037-41123
Cumulative Award Amt.
$748,698.00
Proposal No.
2022-12203
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Sep 1, 2023
Project End Date
Aug 31, 2027
Grant Year
2023
Program Code
[A7801]- Food and Agricultural Non-formal Education
Project Director
Simon, J. E.
Recipient Organization
RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEY
3 RUTGERS PLZA
NEW BRUNSWICK,NJ 08901-8559
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
With food insecurity rising throughout the United States, current food production methods and distribution are ill-equipped to meet the challenge. America, and New Jersey in particular, is rich with culturally diverse populations with unique insights and perspectives on food system approaches and solutions that are often not utilized. By empowering youth from diverse cultural backgrounds to engage with food systems leaders and their individual or community's rich agrarian/fishing/food production/food preparation expertise, we seek to inspire new ideas and dialogue, with the goal of finding solutions to the complex food system challenges we face using STEM. This project will allow us to contribute to the USDA goal of building a diverse workforce in STEM and Ag Tech fields.FAME Ag Tech program activities will take a holistic approach to food systems investigating both terrestrial ("Green Food") and marine ("Blue Food") food sources spanning diverse STEM fields. Furthermore, interweaving bio-cultural knowledge into informal STEM education will serve to further engage and motivate youth, enhance long-term learning goals, and promote cultural pride amongst the community. If we can better connect youth to their community in meaningful and purposeful ways, we improve our chances of creating environments where youth feel a sense of efficacy, belonging, and responsibility to their world (Fields, 2020).Youth will be fully supported to create their science stories that feature 11 universityscientists. These student-authored stories will feature scientists, engineers, and technicians using plant genetics and a wide range of agricultural technology including gene editing, automation in phenotyping and genetic analyses, robotics relative to remote sensing and environmental monitoring and prediction and data science, to develop climate resilience food crops for farmers as well as innovative greenhouse designs and indoor food cultivation techniques
Animal Health Component
25%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
25%
Developmental
25%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
80650103020100%
Knowledge Area
806 - Youth Development;

Subject Of Investigation
5010 - Food;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;
Goals / Objectives
Building on Rutgers University's research, the land grant public engagement infrastructure through the Rutgers' Center for Agricultural Food Ecosystems and Rutgers Cooperative Extension 4-H youth program, this FAME Ag Tech program will create a scalable community engagement model. Anchored in the 4-H positive youth development Thrive Model (Arnold, 2020), we will introduce under-represented youth communities to food system scientists, engineers, farmers, aquaculturists, and subject matter experts while highlighting the youth's own rich agrarian/fishing/food production and food preparation expertise (biocultural knowledge). This project is designed to support non-formal STEM learning opportunities focused on youth in grades 10-11 from New Jersey urban communities with traditionally underrepresented demographics in STEM careers.FAME Ag Tech program activities will take a holistic approach to food systems investigating both terrestrial ("Green Food") and marine ("Blue Food") food sources spanning diverse STEM fields. Furthermore, interweaving bio-cultural knowledge into informal STEM education will serve to further engage and motivate youth, enhance long-term learning goals, and promote cultural pride amongst the community. If we can better connect youth to their community in meaningful and purposeful ways, we improve our chances of creating environments where youth feel a sense of efficacy, belonging, and responsibility to their world (Fields, 2020).Youth will be fully supported to create their science stories that feature 11 university scientists. These student-authored stories will feature scientists, engineers, and technicians using plant genetics and a wide range of agricultural technology including gene editing, automation in phenotyping and genetic analyses, robotics relative to remote sensing and environmental monitoring and prediction and data science, to develop climate resilience food crops for farmers as well as innovative greenhouse designs and indoor food cultivation techniques. These facilities each also employ agricultural technologies. Stories will also feature aquaculture farming and shellfish breeding for food security and marine robotics used to assess ocean ecosystems' food production capability in close partnership with Rutgers plant biology and marine science departments and the Center for New Use Agriculture, Food Innovation Center Aquaculture Innovation Center and Shellfish Laboratory.The pedagogical objective of our science-in-action STEM learning/storytelling modelis to bridge science learning for students (Freeman 2014) and science communication (Baram-Tsabari, 2015) by way of repeated engagement with the video science content through videostories(Dando, 2013; Meager, 2019). Our methodology has demonstrated its potential to inspire young audiences to consider careers in science (Seidel et al., 2023) including food system science, agriculture and ag technology. Ourlearning outcomes for our youth participants including;* Increased science communication skills* Increased knowledge of food systems and agriculture technologies to address food systems challenges* Increased relatability to science and scientists* Increased confidence in agriculture technologies to address food systems challenges* Increased interest in exploring Ag Tech related careersIt is our hypothesis that this program will enhance science learning by way of repeated engagement with science content described in their interviews and personal connections to real life science.
Project Methods
Approach:Positive Youth Development: This learning model will be aligned and developed with the key developmental context in the Thrive Model (Arnold, Arnold, 2018 ). This Positive Youth Development (PYD) model supports key developmental outcomes by creating sparks (opportunities for youth exploration of interests and passions) through quality youth programming supported through caring adult-youth partnerships (youth and scientists) and PYD Program Quality Indicators (culturally relevant). The Thrive model is a socially and culturally responsive learning framework with key principles used by FAME including: (1) providing youth with a sense of belonging; (2) connecting youth to something bigger than themselves; (3) facilitating meaningful, trusting relationships with adults including undergraduates, professional scientists and food systems actors to; (4) spark STEM academic confidence.Methodology & Implementation: Starting Spring 2024, each semester, young people will participate in Short Term Special Interest 4-H Clubs (SPIN) through Spring 2026, engaging a total of 5 cohorts. In this project, youth will be invited from three urban centers in North New Jersey including Paterson, Newark, New Brunswick and Jersey City. These cities have high populations of low income, minority youth who are most often underserved in STEM and Technology learning opportunities. We will focus on recruiting youth who are from first- or second-generation immigrant families. Youth will be recruited in partnership with Diaspora community networks, county Extension offices, local schools, nonprofits, and cultural leaders The SPIN club model was selected from youth feedback about interest in participating in STEM programming but not having the availability to commit to 12 month programs because of sports or other season based opportunities. This model will engage 2115 youth each semester in a 12-week SPIN club experience where they participate in experiential learning opportunities around various ag tech topics. Spring semester's food systems research will focus on Green Food (Terestinal) and the fall semesters will focus on Blue Food (Marie) research. Youth will explore various innovations and technologies related including automation, robotics, gene editing and biotechnology. Experiential learning activities will be developed by the project team in partnership with university sciences, food systems experts, youth development experts and youth!SPIN clubs will follow the traditional format of a 4-H SPIN club, meeting for a set time each week for 2 hours to cover hands-on activities related to exploring various ag technologies and science communication techniques. Each club will include a Saturday field trip to a science lab or research field station where youth will have a chance to interview experts in the field on agriculture technologies and innovation topics. Field trips will provide youth with the opportunity to hear first hand about NJ based ag technologies and the humans working with these technologies to address food systems challenges. Prior to the trip, youth will work in teams of two to identify a culturally relevant food system's challenge and develop a story plan for investigating that challenge. After youth engage with food systems and scientists, they will be challenged to work with a team on developing a Food Systems Solutions Science Story with a focus on the agriculture technologies they experienced and highlighting the scientist or food expert they met with. Youth will be trained in a variety of storytelling techniques including using film for story telling.In teams of 3, youth will complete 3-8 minute videos that include their science story related to the agriculture technology and research they explored. Youth will work with science-storytelling experts to edit their projects to a professional level that they can be proud to showcase. They will also be invited to include their personal stories from their lived experience and family interviews that connect their bio-cultural knowledge to the greater food systems story. Prior to the showcase, youth will be asked to present their stories to the scientists or food systems experts they interview for accuracy and approval.At the end of the club, youth will present their science stories at a community showcase inviting their families and peers. Showcase will offer youth a chance to share what they learned while giving the public an opportunity to learn from a youth perspective about innovative agriculture technology and how science can be used to address our food systems needs. By presenting publicly on their work, we will cultivate their interest in the described agriculture technologies while building their public confidence and ability to describe the agriculture technologies they learned about.Youth stories will also be published on the FAME website for further public access.Repeated engagement with science interview data is understood to reinforce youth's STEM knowledge. Youth must review final film edits with featured scientists to ensure accuracy of the film's science content. It is our hypothesis that this program will enhance science learning by way of repeated engagement with science content described in their interviews and personal connections to real life science.

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

Outputs
Target Audience:This project reaches five key audiences: 1. High school aged youth participate in our FAME program with 15 plus hours of learning in ag tech and science communication and an end-of-program showcase. 2. Undergraduate students serve as mentors for youth throughout all phases of their program. Staff and undergraduate students were trained in youth leadership, positive youth development, science communication, and documentary ethics by project youth development professionals and science communication experts. 3. Scientists and food systems experts, supported by project staff, prepare their research stories in accessible ways for the youth audiences they will be working with. Finally, youth will work in partnership with science storytelling and tech experts to successfully complete their media stories. 4. A broader public audience including parents, youth participants, peers and other community members are invited to the science story showcase to view the youth science films and be present for a Q&A with youth and scientist experts. 5. Informal Education Professionals, 4-H Youth Development professionals, Higher Education STEM learning and STEM retention professionals. Changes/Problems:Our project team is proud to have completed a successful year of programming and outreach bringing together local youth and our university community together. For the pilot year, a change was made in the geographical location of the cooperating high school for recruitment to the 4-H FAME Ag Tech Program. Due to transportation logistics, a high school near campus was selected that had the demographics to draw students from underrepresented groups, as well as the student and teacher interest, which met our project goals. One problem that we are revisiting in year two is our program evaluation plan. The way our current IRB protocol is written complicated data collection from our youth participants. Currently, as it is structured, our SERC evaluation team uses an online system to generate auto emails sending guardians consent paperwork, and program surveys. In addition to glitches in the system's functionality, we found that guardians were not responsive to the unknown sender, which is not a surprise given the current number of Phishing emails the average person receives each day . It was also hard for the project team to directly work with families to help facilitate data collection due to fear of coercion by the evaluation team. Because of this, we had to overburden families with multiple texts and emails about our program evaluation and research needs which were often confusing and could have come off as intimidating. We also ended up with a lower response rate than ideal. We are working with the SERC evaluation team to update the IRB to allow the project team working with the youth participants to integrate research consents into the program registration process and to deliver our program evaluation survey to youth directly in paper form surveys. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Project staff, our youth development, and our science storytelling undergraduate student mentors participated in the Rutgers Protection of Minors Training and 4-H Positive Youth Development training. Rutgers Protection of Minors Training included a criminal background check, and a short webinar focused on Rutgers youth protection policies and youth safety. The 4-H training hosted by project team member Marissa Staffen, included a review of the 4-H Thriving Model, youth ages and stages, classroom management and offered multiple handouts on positive youth development. Mentors were also guided by project team member Dena Seidel in science communication techniques and story editing software. They were guided by Dr. Morin in science learning topics and youth engagement. Our youth participants completed 15 plus hours of programming geared towards increasing their skills and knowledge in Agriculture Technologies, Food Systems and science communications. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The project team hosted a first science story showcase for youth and their families at the Highland Park High School. The event included 6 short science films, a Q&A session and an awards ceremony for youth participants and science and storytelling mentors. A university-based website has been developed showcasing the youth science films. Each semester, films from the new cohorts will be added. Project team leaders presented at the Environmental Storytelling series in Syracuse, New York, in September of 2024, to share the developed storytelling model with students from a variety of majors at both Syracuse University and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF). The event was organized jointly by SUNY ESF's Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications Program, and Syracuse University's Engaged Humanities Network. The organizers of the event were inspired by the methodology and story products coming from Rutgers' storytelling model. Alongside Dena Seidel presenting the model, Rutgers graduate students presented their experiences being interviewed by FAME high school students as they created their story titled "Traditional Roots," which explored the cultural and scientific uses of ginger. They spoke about their experiences working with these students, and how they were able to grasp the information and immerse themselves in the field of Plant Biology, while also sharing the information that they learned with others through their story. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?The evaluation team at Carleton College's Science Education Resource Center (SERC) was invited to support the program through evaluation of project activities and their impact on things like students' science identity, sense of belonging, and other factors that can shape student engagement with and eventual pursuit of STEM studies and careers. The annual report provides the results of data collected via exit tickets and a student pre-/post-program survey during the Spring 2024 pilot implementation of the program, along with associated evaluation learning and recommendations for ensuing program activities. The project evaluation team at SERC provided formative data on program delivery program impact related to our youth learning outcomes. During our first cohort implementation of the program, program staff members distributed a link to the exit ticket and invited students to share their responses at the end of each program session. For the pilot implementation, participants were split into two groups: one typically meeting on Mondays, the other on Tuesdays. The same content was presented to each group during their sequential program sessions, albeit sometimes with slight adaptations based on the success of the first presentation. A daily "exit ticket" was developed to give students an opportunity to indicate how engaged they were in each day's program activities as illustrated in Figure 1. Participants were also asked to identify one thing they learned during each session. Data from these exit tickets was synthesized and will be used to reflect on the impact of individual activities. The project team is using this data to consider modifying specific activities for the next cohort. In addition, to evaluate the program's progress along and impact on project goals, SERC evaluators drew from validated measures commonly used in STEM education research (e.g., Learning Activation Lab, 2022;Cole, S., 2012; and Reninger, 2009) to design a pre-/post- student survey. Portions of the THRIVE Youth Development scale, selected in collaboration with FAME project team members, were also included to assess alignment of the program implementation with the principles underlying FAMEs 4H youth programming, and the extent to which the program successfully established a climate conducive to positive youth development. Those included the "Caring Adults," "Challenging Growth," and "Youth" subscales. Together the resulting surveys explore things like student science identity and engagement, influences on their interests and decision making, and intent to pursue higher STEM education and/or careers. Additionally, bespoke items were developed collaboratively with FAME project team members to assess the impact of program curriculum on science knowledge.? In addition, the project team including project PIs, senior personal, and undergraduate mentors met for a cohort 1 debrief. Notes on what worked well and didn't were collected and will also be considered then planning for the next cohort. From these data sources, some of the major considerations for improvement to better meet our program goals include. ? Build more programing time for each cohort; ? Focus on more Ag teach activities during each session; ? Consider more options for transportation to get youth to campus; and ? Update IRB protocol to better streamline collection of consent and program evaluation

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In a review of our logic model, the project team was successful in reaching many of the intended short-term and medium-term outcomes and are well on our way to realizing our intended long-term outcomes. Through our program evaluation surveys, we have been able to document a growth in knowledge of ag technologies and science communication skills for our youth participants. With our initial showcase, our project team observed our community participants showing an interest in learning more about the agriculture technologies shared in the youth films during the very interactive Q&A session. We do not have tools developed or data collected yet to measure the impact on our undergraduate mentors and scientists. Tools are being developed and will be implemented to measure impact on these audiences during our year 2-3 of outreach. 1.) Our short-term outcomes included: 1.1. Youth: increased comfort and belonging within a science community, increased comfort with scientists, increased knowledge of food systems sciences and agriculture technologies to address food systems challenges; increased awareness of careers in Ag Tech; 1.2 Undergraduate mentors: increased skills in science communication, mentoring, and professional science video story experiences; 1.3 Public: increased knowledge of Ag tech as solutions; positively impact image of STEM and scientists, engineers; and 1.4 Experts: increased science communication experience. 2. Our medium-term outcomes included: 2.1) 4-H programs: Increased science communication skills with different platforms & programming; 2.2) Public: Increased relatability to STEM & scientists; 2.3) For our scientists, engineers and food systems experts: increased engagement with students; and 2.4) For science communicators: Access to raw film footage of AgTech for future projects. 3.) Our Long-Term outcomes include: 3.1) Youth: pursue additional education for careers in agricultural technology with increased confidence in agriculture technologies to address food systems challenges; 3.2) 4-H community: Expand number of FAME ag tech youth programs; 3.3) Public: Empower broader communities with the knowledge to address food insecurity through agricultural technologies; 3.4) Experts: participate in and support new science communication activities

Publications

  • Type: Other Journal Articles Status: Awaiting Publication Year Published: 2024 Citation: Seidel, D.K., M. Steffan, L. Abdullah, X. Morin. Engaging Underrepresented Youth in STEM Learning through Collaborative Video Storytelling.Journal of Extension.