Leadership development, career exploration, decision-making skills, youth voice and personal development are important parts of the Kentucky 4-H Youth Development program and are offered through state 4-H Teen Leadership Boards.  In its fourth year, the Kentucky 4-H SET Leadership Board, ten youth from Extension Districts 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 have worked to expand their reach and demonstrated strong leadership and programming skills.

Major accomplishments this year include:

• Hosting the Kentucky 4-H Robotics Challenge at the Kentucky State Fair in August 2018.  This event brought in over 70 youth and adult volunteers from across the Commonwealth to test their skills in both robotics programming and creative problem solving.   The SET Board members took responsibility for helping with and serving as judges for individual event and providing information on the 4-H Program to participants and the general public.  The SET Board oversaw the logistical flow of the event and served as a visual presence for the Kentucky 4-H Program and SET Project Area.
• Attended the National Youth Maker Summit at the National 4-H Conference Center to learn more about how to incorporate 4-H Youth Development and the Maker Movement.  The Board also hosted a “Rube Goldberg” type challenge for the attended as well as presenting two workshops; “Forming a STEM Youth Council” and “Conducting a Junk Drawer Robotics Challenge” reaching over 100 youth and adults from 12 states.
• Presentation of two workshops and the Capnote activity (Using STEM to Teach Teamwork and Communication) at session three of the Kentucky 4-H Summit to 200+ middle schoolers.
• Development and presentation of the “Coding, Making, Thinking and Solving – Welcome to the world of STEM” workshop for the STEM cohort at the Kentucky 4-H Teen Conference to twenty-five Kentucky 4-H youth and adults.  They also interacted and presented this in conjunction with member of the University of Kentucky Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering faculty members.
• Presentations to various County audiences throughout the state on this year’s National Youth Science Day experiment, “Code Your World”.  These presentations reached over 2000 your and adults to increased awareness of the 4-H SET Program and opportunities for future career development in Computer Science.

The impact the Kentucky 4-H SET Board is having on its members goes way beyond STEM outreach.  The Board is developing future leaders and contributing, productive citizens.