Guest Blogger: 4-H Science, Engineering and Technology

Our guest blogger this week is Steven Worker from the California State 4-H Office.  We are thrilled that 4-H will be joining the Coalition at the Bay Area Science Festival on November 3, 2012 at AT&T Park in San Francisco!  Read on to learn about some of the exciting after school science programs 4-H is doing.

Did you know that for the past 110 years, 4-H programs nationwide have been engaging youth in experientially-based science, engineering, nutrition, citizenship, and agricultural education? Often people are surprised at the scope and breadth of 4-H programming due to the often heard stereotype of 4-H as agriculture and livestock. Today, 4-H has projects in many different areas including aerospace to nutrition, leadership to civic engagement, and plant to animal science. Nationally, 4-H programs serve more than 6.5 million youth, ages 5-19, annual in rural, suburban, and urban settings. California 4-H involves 210,000 youth members supported by 14,000 adult volunteer educators in 4-H clubs, camps, short-term projects, and school-enrichment activities. Another often-missed fact about 4-H is the that it’s the youth outreach and education arm of the University of California Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR). 4-H is housed in the University of California Cooperative Extension office in almost every county with over 800 4-H Clubs in California.

I started 4-H as an eleven year old in the 4-H rocketry project in Santa Barbara County. I fell in love with 4-H and haven’t left since! Now my professional work at the California State 4-H Office based on the University of California, Davis campus is to strengthen programs, offer professional development, develop curriculum, and evaluate efforts related to 4-H science, engineering, and technology. At our core, 4-H science and engineering programs combine the strengths of experiential education and inquiry-based science learning with a positive youth development framework that holistically addresses the developmental and educational needs of young people.

In 2008, California 4-H launched its 4-H Science, Engineering, and Technology (SET) Initiative to strengthen its SET programs. The goals of the California 4-H SET Initiative are to improve 4-H members’ understanding of science and help address the critical need for more scientists and engineers in the workforce. 4-H SET programs help youth improve their knowledge and skills around science, engineering, and technology; connect learning with real-world situations where youth can adopt and use new science methods or improved technology to solve problems; and, in the long term, increase the number and diversity of youth pursuing higher education and careers in science, engineering, and technology fields. Evaluation of our programs demonstrates that 4-H works! Check out the latest research for California at http://www.ca4h.org/Research/4HPublications/ or nationally at http://www.4-h.org/about/youth-development-research/

I am particularly excited about four 4-H SET programs that we’ve launched in the last few years. 

Robotics: In 2010, California 4-H developed the 4-H Junk Drawer Robotics curriculum. The curriculum engages youth, ages 10 through 13, in understanding scientific concepts and processes, the engineering design process cycle, and technology creation and building. The activities provided experiences by working with household items to complete simple design challenges. Junk Drawer Robotics modules are designed around three phases – to learn (science), to do (engineering), and to make (technology). The activities were designed to be led by an adult or teen facilitator following the experiential learning cycle and promoting inquiry. When I lead Junk Drawer Robotics activities with young people, I am constantly amazed at the creativity and innovative ways youth go about designing, building, and solving the challenges. Read more about the curriculum at http://www.4-h.org/resource-library/curriculum/4-h-robotics/junk-drawer-robotics/

Water Education: In 2010, California 4-H developed and tested a curriculum focused on water conservation and quality. The There’s No New Water! curriculum helps high school-aged youth learn about water resources while improving their science and environmental literacy. This curriculum has an emphasis on service learning where youth apply what they’ve learned in the curriculum to address youth conservation and quality concerns at home, in school, or in their community. After participating in the curriculum, one youth participant said, “I learned that we humans alone add a lot of pollution to our water system. We need to be more careful with what chemicals we use, what we do with garbage, and other waste. I really don't want to run out of clean water.” Find out more about There’s No New Water at http://www.4-h.org/resource-library/curriculum/4-h-theres-no-new-water/

Family Science: For many children, having a parent or family member support an interest in science is an important part of learning science. The 4-H SLO Scientists program was conceived and piloted in San Luis Obispo (SLO) County to address the desire and need to involve youth and adults together in hands-on science. This helps improve science processing skills, science literacy and issues of family dynamics. Evaluation of this program shows that youth talk to family members about science and spend more time observing and experimenting after becoming involved. Read more at http://ucanr.org/delivers/?impact=156&delivers=1

4-H National Youth Science Day: Finally, a national movement- On October 10, 2012, millions of young people across the nation will become scientists for the day during the fifth annual 4-H National Youth Science Day (NYSD). NYSD is the premier national rallying event for year-round 4-H Science programming, bringing together youth, volunteers and educators from the nation’s land-grant universities to simultaneously complete the National Science Experiment. In this year's experiment, the 4-H Eco-Bot Challenge, youth will enhance their engineering skills by assembling their own Eco-Bots and surface controls to manage an environmental clean-up. Youth will then test the interaction between the Eco-Bot’s design features and various surface control configurations to determine the most effective clean-up solution for the simulated spill. Find out more at http://www.4-h.org/4-h-national-youth-science-day/

 As these examples show, there are a variety of 4-H programs focusing on science, engineering, and technology. Of course, while I did not share any examples of agriculture and livestock, many youth are involved with 4-H projects in these areas. For me, the take home message about 4-H is that by basing programs on a positive youth development framework,  4-H provides youth with an opportunity to develop strong, positive relationships with adults while engaging in meaningful science, engineering, and technology activities which helps youth ignite a passion for learning. At the end of the day, I think most out-of-school time programs are striving to have youth become healthy, happy, thriving adults who make a positive contribution in their communities.

Western Region 4-H Science Academy

The Coalition is at UC Davis this week for the Western Region 4-H Science Academy.  We are honored to be participating and learning with the 4-H leadership about curriculum, professional development, evaluation and partnerships for high quality science programs within the 4-H organization.  It is clear that 4-H is a leader in informal science learning, so we are very excited to be here!

The Academy kicked off today with Alan Friedman who gave a presentation called "What kids learn about science outside of school is a nice enrichment to what they learn in school - or is it actually the other way around?"

We're thrilled that Coalition Director Carol Tang will give the keynote talk tomorrow on quality science after school for all youth.  Her talk will be streaming live tomorrow at 8:00AM PST, so we invite you to listen in!

Closing the STEM Gender Gap through Mentoring Programs

Happy New Year!  As you probably already know, January is National Mentoring Month, which makes now the perfect time to resolve to learn how your organization can impact gender equity in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields through a mentoring program.   

Why is mentoring so important in establishing equity in the STEM fields?  Isn’t it enough to provide high quality science programs in after school settings, spark boys’ and girls’ interest in science, and offer them support to explore, build, experiment and discover?

According to the Collaborative for Gender Equity in Emerging Technologies, young women don’t consider careers in science because they don’t have female role models in the field or because they feel dissuaded by adults to pursue a career in science.  Furthermore, there are powerful implicit assumptions, held by both men and women, that prevent girls from continuing on in STEM fields.  

One implicit assumption often made is that boys are just ‘naturally’ better at math than girls.  However, in a recent cross-cultural analysis of math abilities across gender by Jonathan Kane and Janet Mertz, no significant difference was found between boys’ and girls’ math abilities.  The report suggests that we need to make social and cultural changes if we want to close the gender gap.  As Mertz explains:

"None of our findings suggest that an innate biological difference between the sexes is the primary reason for a gender gap in math performance at any level. Rather, these major international studies strongly suggest that the math-gender gap, where it occurs, is due to sociocultural factors that differ among countries, and that these factors can be changed."

The partners of the Gender Equity Collaborative, and we at the Coalition for Science After School, believe that mentoring is a critical sociocultural key that can help debunk implicit assumptions about gender and science, and keep us moving towards equity in the STEM fields.   

Mentoring programs can and should look different depending on the needs of the youth in your community, and the strengths of your organization.  

• 4-H’s mentoring program Tech Wizards is designed for all youth, not just girls, who tend to be underrepresented in STEM fields.

• Techbridge highlighted in this article by EdWeek, serves over 600 elementary and secondary girls, most of whom are minorities.  The website has great resources for potential mentors. 

• New Coalition member Chidren First CEO of Kansas recently announced the launch of their mentor program.  They are currently recruiting college women seeking STEM degrees, as well as girls in middle and high school to participate in monthly meetings.

• Girls Inc of the Island City, Girls Inc of Alameda County and the Center for Science Education at the Sciences Laboratory are creating a mentoring program for 5 ‘generations’ of females - elementary, middle, undergraduate, graduate students and scientists - will participate in after school science studies together.

• At the Exploratorium, the Biology Department has created an internship program for one high school student.  This video shows that even the smallest of mentoring programs can have a tremendous impact on how a mentee feels about pursuing a future in STEM. 

If Mentoring Month, the stories listed above, or your reflections on your own career path have motivated you to make a difference in a young person’s life and in the future of the STEM field, visit mentoring.org on information on how to start a mentor program.  And if you’re already involved with a mentoring program, you’re not off the hook!  This is the perfect time time to think about evaluating your program.

How are you and your organization resolving to impact equity in the STEM fields through a mentor program?