Abstract
Informal STEM education programs through youth-serving organizations like 4-H have the potential to help youth prepare for future STEM careers. Volunteers continue to be an important way to mentor and provide programs for youth with support and guidance from professionals working for youth organizations. 4-H STEM programs present challenges for 4-H professionals and traditional 4-H volunteers who often have limited knowledge and confidence in their ability to teach STEM skills. Recruiting science experts as volunteers to lead 4-H STEM programs is one way to provide these programs, but some experts have limited knowledge about youth development and how to engage youth. Findings from the 4-H Science: Building a 4-H Career Pathway initiative are discussed here related to volunteer training, volunteer recruitment and retention and resources needed for 4-H professionals and volunteers to successfully implement 4‑H STEM programs. A process evaluation was conducted that included focus groups and interviews in 3 states that participated in the initiative. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with youth, parents, volunteers, and 4-H professionals involved in 4-H STEM programs. Themes included the need for volunteer training focused on increasing STEM knowledge and skills as well as pedagogy and youth engagement, the need for training for 4-H professionals related to STEM skills so they could support volunteer efforts, and the need to use diverse methods to recruit science experts and other volunteers for these programs.
Highlights
Out-of-school time, informal STEM education has the potential to reinforce classroom science and to help youth prepare for future STEM careers to address the shortage of scientists in the workforce (Heck et al, 2012; Rothwell, 2014)
Barriers for Working With Volunteers in 4-H STEM Programs Several themes emerged related to the challenge of working with volunteers to deliver 4-H STEM programs
These included the limited STEM knowledge of traditional 4-H volunteers, the limited knowledge of youth development and teaching skills for scientists who were interested in becoming volunteers, and the difficulty of recruiting and retaining 4-H volunteers who were skilled in STEM or were willing to complete STEM training
Summary
STEM projects can be challenging for youth-serving organizations to implement especially if their professionals and volunteers have limited STEM subject matter experience and knowledge (Barker et al, 2009; Laursen et al, 2013). To meet this challenge, organizations like 4-H are expanding their volunteer models to engage highly trained volunteers such as faculty and professionals to offer technical STEM programs (Riley & Butler, 2012; Veleva et al, 2012). It is critical that youth organizations identify solutions to support volunteers’ competence and ability to lead quality STEM projects
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