This is year two for the 4-H Back to the Roots program! It started with local partnership between Kentucky State University 4-H and 2nd Street School. The overall goal was to reach a maximum of 25 middle schools students and bring them to the Rosenwald 4-H Youth Development Center for a 5- week program that would allow them to develop their own experimental designs process with the Back to the Roots system. The students started the program each week learning about different subjects that pertain to the Back to the Roots system such as, parts of the seed, fish antamony, life cycle, and robotics in agriculture. During the 5th week of instruction, the students visited the Aquaculture Research Center to see aquaponics on a production scale and to make a comparisionon with the work they have been doing. The students met with Aquaculture Specialist about pursuing careers in the Aquatics Industry. The vision is to follow these students over the years to come and develop a pipeline for them to enter the Aquatic Sciences programs at Kentucky State University. 

On March 7, 2023, 22 participants completed a pre-post survey after their visit to the Aquaculture Research Center. They rated their interest on a scale of 1-5 stars, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest.  Students rated their interest in learning about Aquaculture 2.48 Stars before the program verses 3.50 stars afterwards. Their interest in pursuing a degree for Aquaculture was rated 1.64 stars before the program verses 2.76 stars afterwards. Two of the students were selected to do a focus group interview, which will be shared with future participants. Overall their interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics was rated 2.82 stars before the program verses 3.59 stars afterwards. Based upon the results from this program, the partnership will continue to grow.