Abstract
We describe the adaptation of an existing afterschool STEM program in order to make it more relevant and effective for rural teens. The award-winning Teen Science Cafe (TSC) program was modified to redirect focus away from traditional, academic STEM careers toward STEM in First Response, a field whose members are common and visible in rural areas. The program was implemented and organized by TSC Mentors, local adults who connect youth with out-of-school STEM resources and professionals. We found that attendance at multiple TSCs had a significant impact on how youth viewed First Response in their community, as well as STEM careers in general. This work demonstrates that it is possible to find professionals with robust and exciting STEM expertise in rural areas; to adapt existing STEM program models to connect these professionals to rural teens; and to use these adapted models to help teens become more aware of the STEM opportunities in their communities and increase their interest in STEM First Response careers.
Highlights
This paper describes our adaptation of an existing afterschool program, the Teen Science Café (TSC), in order to connect visible STEM role models to youth in rural Maine communities
We found that “game warden” and “engineer” were the top occupational choices for boys while “teacher” and “nurse” topped the list for girls (Mokros et al, 2014). With this knowledge in hand, we searched for a program that would introduce STEM careers to high school aged rural youth that would be compatible with their existing interests and accessible
The percentages of positive responses ranged from 0%-100%, inspiring the question, “Would higher interest in STEM be positively related to higher interest in Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and a greater intent to pursue further studies in EMT?” The Pearson correlations shown in Table 3 indicated that all STEM Interest STEM Intent EMT Interest EMT Intent
Summary
This paper describes our adaptation of an existing afterschool program, the Teen Science Café (TSC), in order to connect visible STEM role models to youth in rural Maine communities. We found that “game warden” and “engineer” were the top occupational choices for boys while “teacher” and “nurse” topped the list for girls (Mokros et al, 2014) With this knowledge in hand, we searched for a program that would introduce STEM careers to high school aged rural youth that would be compatible with their existing interests and accessible. The aim of the modified or First Responder Teen Science Café program was to highlight the careers such as firefighter, police officer, and EMT that are not traditionally at the forefront of STEM discussions but comprise the backbone of many rural communities
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