Fostering Futures: Serving as the Collegiate Mentor for the Utah 4-H STEM and Agriscience Ambassadors

Combining principles of community engagement, psychology, and computer science, this project was created to apply academic knowledge to a community based need. Whereas girls have been shown to be less likely to believe they had the necessary qualities to study STEM (Merayo & Ayuso, 2022), report having learned about fewer STEM concepts by the end of high school (Merayo & Ayuso, 2022) and indicate higher rates of avoidance due to feeling incapable (Gallup, 2023), girls involvement in STEM was a primary focus for the project. As rural students also see a drop in STEM interest, have less access to advanced STEM courses, and fewer STEM extracurricular activities (Saw & Agger, 2021), they were also a primary focus. I partnered with the youth development organization 4-H to address these needs as it has been shown to positively affect participants' life skills (Garton et al., 2007) and engage youth across project areas (Bunnell & Pate, 2006). Additional research indicates the effectiveness of role models (González-Pérez, Cabo, & Sáinz, 2020) and near-peer mentoring (Anderson et al., 2015; Williams & Fowler, 2014). This foundation of research led to an effective collaboration with Utah State University Cooperative Extension and Youth Development Programs, specifically the Utah 4-H program. I worked with the Utah 4-H State Agriscience and STEM Ambassadors. These two teams of youth from around the state collaborated to increase access to STEM and Agriscience on the local level, design inclusive curriculum, lead trainings, and represent Utah 4-H and their project areas at the national level. Serving as the Collegiate Mentor, I modeled near-peer mentoring as I taught essential facilitation and conceptual skills, aided in onboarding and training, and guided them through their ambassador year. The curriculum remained youth-led, but I provided feedback to ensure content accuracy, scalability, and that the outlined activities aligned with best practices in positive youth development and education. While their curriculum set provides a physical final product, the greatest accomplishments of the project were found in what they were able to do and teach. At their annual "Teens Reaching Youth (TRY) Team" training, they were able to spread their activities to small groups of youth from around the state to run locally in various forms, adapted to best meet the needs of their communities. Both sets of ambassadors also were able to present workshops on best practices at the National 4-H Ignite Conference in Washington, D.C., and share their curriculum with youth teams and Youth Development professionals from around the country.