In light of the proven benefits of high-quality afterschool STEM programming for teens, the author worked with colleagues at University of Maryland Extension to institute the Pollinator Ambassador program. The program was launched through a county-based 4-H program at a partner site in a community outside Washington, DC. Following the 4-H Thriving…

When considering community impacts of outdoor education (OE), youth are community members, leaders, and experts who can and should be meaningfully involved in the design and evaluation of OE programs and research that impact them. Ensuring youth have agency in these processes can create opportunities for building community (Brennan, 2008), making…

In this introduction to the special issue, "Youth Participatory Action Research on Puerto Rican Students' Experiences with Hurricane Maria: Shifting from Resilience to Resistance," we outline the theoretical foundations of youth participatory action research (YPAR) and explicate the guiding principles that are seminal in the corpus of…

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that there are over 400,000 children currently in foster care in the United States. Most youth are in the system for at least a year, with 38% for two years or longer. The most common placement setting for children in foster care is nonrelative foster family homes; about half of youth exit…

In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 8% of youth in grades 9-12 reported being in a physical fight one or more times in the 12 months preceding the survey, with more than 7% reporting being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property. Homicide is the 3rd leading cause of…

Experiential learning has been used to inform programming and practices in a wide variety of contexts such as adventure therapy and outdoor education. Furthermore, experiential learning has been used to explain the learning process of individuals, groups, and teams. Its relationship with the context of youth sport, however, has yet to be fully…

The goal of this American Association of School Administrators (AASA) youth apprenticeship toolkit is to encourage the creation of school and business partnerships as a viable and expansive pathway to success in school, career and work. This toolkit provides resources for secondary and community college administrators to advocate for and build…

Youths not only participate in Extension services but also can be equipped as facilitators to extend information about a critical topic to new audiences. Our interdisciplinary team of Extension professionals created a program to equip youths as peer educators, increase youths' awareness and understanding of a new topic (local foods), promote…

This article describes how one strength and conditioning youth development program implements the teaching personal and social responsibility (TPSR) framework with a portfolio-based system. Some scholars have noted that using portfolios helps connect assessment to instruction by promoting individualized learning for students. The purpose of this…

Youth involved in 4-H projects have been engaged in science-related endeavors for years. Since 2006, 4-H has invested considerable resources in the advancement of science learning. The new Minnesota 4-H Science of Agriculture Challenge program challenges 4-H youth to work together to identify agriculture-related issues in their communities and to…

Youth service professionals in various settings across the United States are responsible for preparing youth and youth adults, ages 12 to 25, to be successful in employment, postsecondary education, and adult life. Whether they work in the public workforce development system or other public agencies (e.g., child welfare, juvenile justice, mental…

The State Title I, Part D (Part D) coordinator or other administrators of Part D programs have a focus on improving outcomes for children and youth. One way of outlining these goals and the path to achieving them is through the use of a logic model. This guide describes what a logic model is, outlines why and how a logic model can be useful, and…

After a brief review of the 4-H professional development standards, a new model for determining the value of continuing professional development is introduced and applied to the 4-H standards. The validity of the 4-H standards is affirmed. 4-H Extension professionals are encouraged to celebrate the strength of their standards and to engage the…

Citizens need to be college prepared in higher numbers and with greater urgency than in the past. This growing need for a college-prepared workforce places increased demand on schools to create college-ready students. The Career and College Readiness Standards for much of public education foster the skills and dispositions for academic excellence,…

The University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development made an organizational decision in 2011 to invest in a system-wide approach to implement youth program quality into the 4-H program using the Youth Program Quality Assessment (YPQA) tool. This article describes the four key components to the Minnesota Youth Program Quality…