Reaching youth to teach life skills is the cornerstone of 4-H programs!  Youth participate in 4-H programs through schools, community and project clubs, day camps/workshops, and residential camps/conferences.  These are your traditional avenues for youth participation, but there are exceptions and youth audiences we tend to not think of.

The Purchase Youth Village (PYV) is a Level II Juvenile Psychiatric Treatment Facility located in Marshall County.  The facility offers psychiatric, behavioral, and substance abuse treatment services to male and female residents ages 8-17.  Partnership with Marshall County School System provides education to the residents during their time at the facility.  Reaching out to the community for programming opens further opportunities for learning.

Over this past year, the Marshall County 4-H Youth Development and State 4-H Specialist for Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) introduced a variety of science programs to the PYV youth.  Science topics included aerospace; 4-H National Youth Science Day experiment on coding; Google virtual field trips; and robotics.  The audience make-up varied for each program, but the youth represented a mix of ages, grades, racial & socio-economic backgrounds, and various facets of Kentucky.  One of the main things all youth had in common was excitement to do something new…Sometimes mixed with a little nervousness that is not uncommon when tackling something in the realm of science.

The 2018 4-H NYSD Experiment – Code Your World was conducted over a two-day period with the youth.  The Marshall County 4-H Youth Development Agent introduced the concept of coding through the “unplugged” activities.  The youth worked with a partner to write out step-by-step directions to teach the class a dance or exercise.  The class represented a computer who had to follow these directions to complete the task.  Youth learned quickly they could not assume a computer automatically knows something if it’s not told specifically what to do.  

The second day involved the computer portion of Code Your World.  The 4-H Specialist for STEM led the youth through the process to develop an animation of their name.  During this process, the youth had to apply the basic coding skills learned through the unplugged activity to computer programming.  Some had previously participated in coding lessons at their schools, but for several it was brand new.  A few got frustrated at times, but when they worked with the 4-H STEM Specialist, 4-H Agent, or their teacher to talk it through…The delight of accomplishing something was evident in their faces.  

Following the programs, the 21 youth completed the 2018 4-H NYSD evaluation.  Through their Code Your World experiment, they indicated how they felt about their knowledge or ability for the following statements at the highest level of 5 or Positively:

•    12 – I know how Computer Science (CS) influences the world around me.

•    11 – I know why detailed instructions are important of accomplishing a task.

•    11 – I can use computational thinking to solve programs and create solutions.

•    10 – I can solve complex problems by breaking them down into smaller steps.

Several also indicated increased knowledge or ability in recognizing patterns for problem solving; understanding how Artificial Intelligence devices make decisions; what and how to write an algorithm; and examples of careers in Computer Science.

The above is a sample of some of the knowledge gained or life skills demonstrated by the PYV participants through 4-H STEM programming.  In all of the programs, youth demonstrated teamwork, planning, communication, mentoring (older youth working with the younger ones), and even conflict resolution skills.  The greatest impact however may have been on the Marshall County 4-H Youth Development Agent and 4-H Specialist for STEM.  Being able to work with the PYV youth.  Witnessing at risk youth with varied backgrounds of support be provided the opportunity to be successful is not only a very important component of positive youth development, but very rewarding as well.