Historically Youth are not interested in careers in agriculture and underrepresented in extension related programming through 4-H.

Kentucky State University’s 4-H Youth Development program held the 2023 4-H Ignite Conference on April 21^st. The conference drew in 100 middle school youth participants, 40 volunteers, 10 chaperones, and 15 extension staff members with students representing Jefferson County. During the conference, the participants got the opportunity to participate in 3 of the 6 available workshops of their choosing. One of the workshops offered was a workshop based on Agriculture, which was led by 2 of the Agriculture department college students. This workshop exposed the workshop participants to careers in Agriculture, common misconceptions of the agricultural field, and agricultural majors participants could major in if they decided to go to college. The workshop had 42 middle school youth participants to choose this particular workshop. At the end of the workshop, there was a post-workshop survey given to each student, and the results included: 67% of the workshop participants agreed that the workshop leader was very knowledgeable about the subject matter; 44% and 55% of the workshop participants stated that the workshop was either organized or extremely organized respectively; 61% of the participants agreed that they wanted to learn more about agriculture; and 77% of the workshop participants agreed that this workshop should be included in future 4-H Ignite Conferences. This workshop was a major success, and the 4-H team will consider keeping this workshop within the 4-H Ignite Conference rotation.