Tag Archives: youth development

By Karene Booker
Reprinted from the Cornell Chronicle, October 24, 2011

4-H participants

Students learning about careers in natural resources participate in mushroom identification at the 4-H Career Explorations program on campus this past summer.

To strengthen its ties to research, oversight of 4-H -- New York state's largest youth development program -- has moved to Cornell's new Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research from Cornell Cooperative Extension. The move will provide new opportunities for teaching and research and help to improve 4-H programs.

"Research is critical to the mission of preparing youth for adulthood," said Stephen Hamilton, professor of human development and associate director for youth development at the Bronfenbrenner Center. "In the translational research model, science informs program content, how it is delivered and how results are evaluated. In turn, practice informs research by identifying new questions that research could address.

"By bringing 4-H even closer to the university, our aim is to ensure that programming decisions are based on the best evidence of what young people need and what programs are most likely to meet those needs. Some of the evidence will be found in the research literature. Some will be generated by research conducted by Cornell faculty and staff working collaboratively with 4-H educators, volunteers, youth and other stakeholders."

4-H is rooted in science. The program originated at the land-grant universities at the turn of the 20th century to introduce such improved practices as hybrid seed corn, milk sanitation and safer home canning procedures. Researchers found young people were more open than adults to the new ideas and technologies and would share their successes with their parents and communities. These innovative programs for rural youth gave rise to the first 4-H clubs. Soon 4-H became a national youth development program run by the land-grant universities and the Cooperative Extension system.

In New York state in 2009-10, almost 17,000 volunteers and 113,000 youth from urban, suburban and rural communities participated in 4-H. State staff in the Bronfenbrenner Center guide programs and provide support for 4-H educators in each county's Cornell Cooperative Extension office. 4-H provides hands-on learning and mentoring through community clubs, camp settings, after-school and school-based projects that emphasize science, engineering and technology, citizenship and healthy lifestyles. Learning by doing is a fundamental 4-H ideal intended to encourage young people to experiment, innovate and think independently, and to help them develop leadership, citizenship and life skills.

"Our goal is to link the extensive array of county-level programs with the latest research on youth development," said Valerie Adams, New York 4-H youth development program leader. "In an era where such programs compete intensely for funding and for time -- both on the part of kids who participate and the adult volunteers and staff who run them -- we need to be able to show that these projects make a difference. With 4-H as a part of the Bronfenbrenner Center, we have a wonderful opportunity to provide the type of support our county educators need to do just that."

The Bronfenbrenner Center, based in the College of Human Ecology, formed in July 2011 when the Family Life Development Center and the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center merged.

Karene Booker is an extension support specialist in the Department of Human Development.

Related Links:
Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research
College of Human Ecology
New York State 4-H

Adams

By John McKain
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, July 5, 2011

Valerie Adams will become New York's 4-H Youth Development Program leader and assistant director of Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) as of Aug. 29.

Adams will plan, deliver and evaluate 4-H, the youth component of CCE, supported by staff in 57 counties and New York City and thousands of volunteer leaders across the state. She will link extensive county-level programs with the research-based resources of Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and College of Human Ecology.

A former 4-H educator in Philadelphia, she also has worked with Junior Achievement, Children's Defense Fund Freedom School, 21st Century Community Learning Center, Center for Youth Development at the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania and as a lecturer in Namibia.

She currently serves as research coordinator for the Preventing Long-term Anger and Aggression in Youth Project at the University of Pennsylvania, where she integrates developmental theories into the design and application of culturally relevant interventions.

Adams said, "I am excited about serving as the NYS 4-H leader because it provides a wonderful opportunity to work with a dynamic group of people -- researchers, educators, volunteers and administrators who are passionate and vested in supporting and creating programs that result in positive youth development programming for 4-Hers across the state."

Adams received her B.S. from Philadelphia University, master's degree in urban education from Temple University and Ph.D. in interdisciplinary studies and human development from the University of Pennsylvania. She has done additional graduate study in South Africa.

Adams, said CCE Director Helene Dillard, "is clearly suited to advance the mission of Cornell Cooperative Extension and our 4-H youth development programs. Her history of moving innovative research into on-the-ground programs, and her first-hand experience working with kids in diverse settings, will make her a real asset to our programs, our educators and volunteers, and all the youth in New York who participate in 4-H."

With Adams' appointment, 4-H will relocate to the new Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. Formed by the merger of the Family Life Development Center and the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center, the new center in the College of Human Ecology will bridge the gap between research and practice. 4-H will be at the vanguard of using research on youth development and learning to guide practices and programs. Practitioners, youth and other stakeholders will also engage in evaluation and other forms of research.

"Valerie is an advocate for 4-H and is highly qualified to advance youth development programs across the state," said Steve Hamilton, associate director for youth development at the Bronfenbrenner Center. "With her background and expertise, Valerie adds tremendous depth to the programs, and we look forward to a future of continued improvement."

With more than 6 million youth members, 4-H is the largest out-of-school youth organization in the United States. 4-H has been enriching the lives of youth and their families since the beginning of the 20th century. CCE staff members lead 4-H programs in nearly every county and city in New York state.

John McKain is assistant dean for communications in the College of Human Ecology.

Related Links:
New York State 4-H
College of Human Ecology

Ritch Savin WilliamsRich Savin-Williams, director of the Sex & Gender Lab in the Department of Human Development is quoted extensively in this ABC News article about coming out. Although coming out has been shown to have mental health benefits overall, he advises being selective and strategic.

Read more

   
Reprinted from Cornell Chronicle, July 21, 2011

Hamilton

A new program called CITIZEN U, funded by a new five-year grant of $660,000, will support at-risk youth to become active citizens in their communities, graduate from high school and go on to college.

CITIZEN U (short for both "CITIZEN YOU" and "CITIZEN University") also aims to build the capacity of the partners to successfully conduct and sustain youth community action programs and make lasting contributions to high-need communities in Binghamton and Rochester.

The program, a joint effort of Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) and the College of Human Ecology funded by the Children, Youth and Families at Risk Program at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), is structured to mirror a university setting. Teens in the program will participate in weekly afterschool "seminars" taught by "visiting professors" from CCE, community agencies and business partners. They will choose "majors" and "enroll in courses" aligned with NIFA's priority areas on food security, climate change, sustainable energy and prevention of childhood obesity, among others. The program includes summer employment for the students to implement the projects they planned during the school year.

"CITIZEN U embodies the key principles of youth development, notably giving young people a voice in deciding what they do and enabling them to contribute to their communities," said Professor Steve Hamilton, associate director for youth development at the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. "This new project will help us learn how to put those principles into practice more widely."

"A broad-based community and university partnership is critical to the success of this innovative project," said June P. Mead, project director and evaluator at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Broome County. "We welcome all interested collaborators."

The program will be housed in the 4-H state office, newly located in the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, and implemented in partnership with CCE offices in Broome and Monroe/Wayne counties.

Related Links:

New York State 4-H

By Karene Booker

youth from Cali, Colombia

Youth engage in restorative justice activities at Casas Francisco Esperanza in Cali, Colombia.

Key features of community programs to help marginalized youth and young adults successfully transition to adulthood include mentoring and opportunities for work and leadership roles, according to a Cornell study in Latin America.

The 18-month "action research" project, "Opening Pathways: Youth in Latin America" ("Abriendo Caminos: Jóvenes en América Latina"), engaged four organizations in Argentina, Mexico and Colombia in a process to better understand ways that community programs can make their community a better place for youth and young adults.

"Institutional innovation is needed to support the transition to adulthood," said Stephen Hamilton, professor of human development in the College of Human Ecology. "The ingredients for success have changed. The institutions that have traditionally fostered the transition to adulthood no longer function well for all or even a majority of youth."

mother's group in Bariloche, Argentina

A mother's group from the Por un Manaña program meets in Bariloche, Argentina.

In a global perspective, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico are developed and prosperous. However they have very large income inequality and large populations in poverty. While education levels have been rising, they still have low levels of secondary and postsecondary education, high youth unemployment and underemployment, and early childbirth for women.

In prior research, Hamilton and Mary Agnes Hamilton, senior research associate and director of the Cornell Youth in Society Program, identified three assets critical for youth to advance in society: a sense of purpose and agency, including having both a life plan and the confidence to enact it; the competence needed to work productively; and connections to others (social capital) to formulate and achieve their goals.

They have identified six common structural features among successful youth-oriented programs that help nurture these assets. They are:

  • public-private partnerships that combine learning and earning;
  • opportunities for youths to take responsible social roles;
  • opportunities for youths to take leadership roles
  • opportunities for youths to take responsible civic engagement roles;
  • exposure to a wide variety of pathways to the future; and
  • mentoring.

"Our project was designed to test and refine this conceptual framework of developmental assets and structural features," said Mary Agnes Hamilton, senior research associate and director of the Cornell Youth in Society Program. The project provided insights into how these elements are created and manifested, she added.

In addition to initial site visits and frequent communication with the partner organizations, the research team organized three conferences during the course of the project to bring the partner organizations together to catalyze learning and exchange.

At the first, teams from each program, including youth, identified critical issues and began to plan action research to explore them. At the second, the teams shared what they had done and learned and planned their next action steps. At the third, they were joined by representatives of foundations, government agencies and nongovernmental organizations to discuss themes cutting across the different programs and considered joint actions. Participants agreed that they could benefit from continued expert assistance and networking as they built on what they had learned to improve their programs.

"Rather than being a time simply to tell others what they had done, the conferences proved to be a continuation of action research," said the Hamiltons, who hope to help create a larger network to further address mentoring and employment in particular.

Other members of their action research team included Davydd Greenwood, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology, and six bilingual student research assistants.

The project was supported by Jacobs Foundation in Switzerland.

For More Information:  See the full report.

Jeffrey Valla

As part of the annual 4-H Cornell Cooperative Extension Career Explorations program for teens on July 1-3, Professor Wendy Williams and Human Development Graduate Student Jeff Valla hosted a group of twenty-five 4-H youth who participated in the “Thinking Like A Scientist” (TLAS) extension education program. 2008 was the 8th consecutive year that TLAS was offered as part of the summer Career Explorations program. Over three days, these 4-H students were exposed to a wide array of current research and ideas in psychology. In addition to “thinking like scientists,” these students were exposed to hands-on activities in which they learned about how to properly design and perform psychological research like “real” scientists.

TLAS is an NSF-funded extension program led by Williams that aims to teach youth about the scientific method, scientific research, and what it is like to be a practicing scientist, in addition to teaching everyday critical thinking skills. The broader goal of TLAS is to foster an early interest in science in young people from groups traditionally underrepresented in science careers—such as youth of color and those from disadvantaged backgrounds—by providing exposure to engaging science-related experiences.

TLAS takes a dynamic, novel approach to teaching the scientific method TLAS uses concepts and research carefully chosen to be more intrinsically engaging and familiar to junior high and high school youth than topics typically covered in schools. Topics include E.S.P., Depression, Violent Videogames, and other material relevant to teenagers. TLAS students learn about correlation versus causation, controlled experiments, and the implications of research for public policy and society at large. Thus, students are learning the scientific method in contexts they already know about and can relate to.

This year’s program, taught by Valla (himself a N.Y.S. 4-H success story), and assisted by undergraduate student Jessica Zulawski, also included hands-on activities in which students designed their own experiments to test the effects of violent videogames on aggression and whether or not ESP exists, coupled with in-depth discussions of how different policy groups would react to the findings of their studies. Participants were even given a firsthand look at actual research going on here in the department—they had a chance to play Human Development professor Matthew Belmonte’s new “Astropolis” videogame, a work-in-progress prototype that uses a “space invader”-style interface for autism testing and therapy. The program concluded with the annual trip to the must-see Cornell Brain Collection display in Uris Hall, to the excitement of many students and slight dismay of those with weaker stomachs.

Participants finished the program with a more dynamic understanding of the scientific method, an understanding of how the scientific method can be used in everyday critical thinking, a better understanding of the fact that “real” scientists aren’t just people in white lab coats mixing chemicals, and an understanding of how psychologists actually go about designing, implementing, and revising experiments to answer important questions. While we hope that some of these students will one day decide to pursue science careers themselves, even those who do not will be more scientifically literate and more aware of how science affects their world.

For Further Information

Thinking Like a Scientist Online Resources

By Roger Segelken
In press, Spring issue of Cornell Human Ecology Magazine
Remember the first time you saw the Periodic Table of Elements? It was probably hanging above the blackboard in high school chemistry class; the arrangement of its inscrutable rows of little boxes was supposed to reflect the properties of the elements—to help you “think like a scientist.”

But all you could think was: “I’ll never learn the difference between magnesium and manganese!” Or “Why can’t the symbol for lead be Ld?”
Middle-class students slog through, and with effective teaching, most come to see the wisdom of the Periodic Table. But poor kids in under-resourced schools lack the necessary scaffolding, and they opt out. For Wendy M. Williams, professor of human development, the Periodic Table of Elements and how it is traditionally taught have become a symbol for why disadvantaged youth have so much trouble turning on to science.
“In fact, the scientific method is a perfectly good way to do fact-finding, reasoning, and analysis about real-world problems of everyday life, and it is essential that we bring this message to underserved youth,” Williams says. “When and if kids get deeper into chemistry with the benefit of good teaching, they come to appreciate the Periodic Table as a thing of beauty and a useful tool. But if we tell them they have to learn the Periodic Table before they can think like a scientist, then most would rather not.”
And they will lose, perhaps forever, the chance to acquire skills they need, to discover for themselves the truth and what it means, and to be liberated from the “thought police”—television advertisers, closed-minded parents, or prejudiced schoolmates. They also lose a valuable mechanism for escaping the cycle of poverty through education and careers in science.
Thinking Like a Scientist (TLAS) is sounding better and better to schoolchildren across the United States who are exposed to curricula by that name.
The TLAS curriculum has been under development, with funding support from the National Science Foundation, in the Cornell Institute for Research on Children since 2002, with Williams and former graduate students Matthew C. Makel and David M. Biek as the principal authors. The lessons were tested first at inner-city schools and Indian reservations, where many children drop out before graduating from high school and few consider careers in the physical sciences and social sciences to be even a remote possibility.
The ultimate audience for TLAS, says Williams, co-director of the Cornell institute, are low-SES (socio-economic status) female and minority youth and young adults in high schools and community colleges. A secondary audience is the same population in community centers, religious organizations, and adult-education venues. Wendy Williams, herself, came from a disadvantaged background—she was a self-supporting high-school dropout at age 16, who earned a G.E.D. to enroll in college.
Fortunately for science, the young dropout’s potential was recognized; she got a second chance in the form of a scholarship from a school with ample resources, motivated students, and teachers with a passion for teaching. Williams wound up graduating cum laude with distinction from Columbia, earned two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. from Yale, garnered a slew of awards, authored dozens of articles and eight books, became a widely cited authority on the societal implications of intelligence, and co-founded the Cornell Institute for Research on Children.
Unfortunately—for millions of girls, minorities, and other at-risk kids— not every young person has the benefit of such an education. But virtually every school has some passionate teachers, even though resources are woefully inadequate, Williams insists. To prove the worth of TLAS, it was piloted in the toughest, neediest cases: in a five-week summer program for Chicago’s inner-city youth where 100 percent of the participants were kids on public assistance, and in 100 percent Native American Tribal Reservation high schools in North Dakota, among other locations.
After tests of the TLAS curricula in Arizona, North Dakota, Iowa, and Alabama, the project moves closer to home—for studies with black and Latino students in New York City and with poor white and Native American students in rural Saratoga County, N.Y. Pre-tests of scientific thinking ability are administered before the program, and post-tests are administered after the program, both to students in the program and to matched control students in neighboring classrooms. In every case, score improvements have been larger for students in TLAS classes.
Fact-Finding

Williams says that much of what is important in students’ lives is knowable; they can find out facts for themselves; and they can use proven information to make important decisions and changes in things that matter to them.
Many of the facts the TLAS students learn to uncover come from recently published meta-analyses in major scientific journals. They learn how scientific consensus is reached by the re-examination and conglomeration of previous, smaller studies.
The 13 modules in one current collection of TLAS materials cover a spectrum of social, physical, cognitive, and medical sciences. Each two-hour long module helps students discover, by doing, the many ways the scientific method can help answer questions: by defining the problem, seeing multiple sides of an issue, and distinguishing fact from opinion. They learn how to determine what constitutes evidence and how to weigh evidence and make decisions.
The 4 Rs of the Scientific Method

Students who have trouble making decisions seem to love the Four Rs of TLAS: Revisit, Reflect, Re-evaluate, and Review. For some, it is the first time they are encouraged to have “second thoughts” about anything.
When it came to choosing topics for the TLAS exercises, Williams tried to think like a curious kid. She and her graduate students built the lessons around questions such as “Effects of Violent Video Games: Do they Doom Kids to Mortal Kombat” (playing on the titles of two games), “Cigarettes: Stress Relief or Just a Bunch of Smoke?” and “Telling Lies: Can You Read It in Their Eyes?”
Some lessons are particularly—even uncomfortably— relevant to sensitive teenagers, such as “Depression: What Do We Do to Treat It?” Pregnant teens, who are at particular risk of dropping out, learn to apply some science to a question that most adults can’t answer: “Does Breastfeeding Make Babies Smarter Later in Life?”

And some topics are just plain fun, including “Is ESP For Real? I Knew You Were Going to Ask That!” and “Smiles in Women Versus Men: Who Smiles More and What Does It Mean?”
Left Behind vs. Racing Ahead

Who needs Thinking Like a Scientist?
“The TLAS curriculum does get the students involved in the biological and social sciences, and by training scientific thinking, it helps students do well on many parts of standardized tests,” Williams maintains, “and they really excel in tests that measure underlying thinking—not just what was taught, by rote, in class.” Examinations completed by students in schools using TLAS are shipped to the Cornell Institute for Research on Children, where the tests are scored using “blind” evaluations to eliminate possible bias from knowing which participants are “controls” and which are not.
Scores on tests of scientific thinking ability have shown greater improvements pre-test to post-test for students in TLAS classes compared to matched control students in neighboring classes, in various populations Williams has studied; among them, Native American Tribal reservation youth in North Dakota, African American and disadvantaged white youth in Alabama, Mexican-American and disadvantaged white youth in Arizona, and disadvantaged white youth in upstate New York. The tests are fair to all students because their questions tap scientific thinking and reasoning ability completely unrelated to the specific content of the educational modules.
If funding holds out, the Cornell Institute hopes to track TLAS “alumni” as they go to college (or join the workforce) to see if they get more remunerative jobs as a result of their science training.
Pathways to Success

Williams looks forward to comparing overall results from the TLAS project with results from another study she is doing, also focusing on helping disadvantaged youth. Her project called “Pathways to Success for Underrepresented Youth: A 50-Year Retrospective Longitudinal Study” is looking at “life course outcomes” for 600 mostly poor and minority individuals who attended the Telluride Association’s free summer enrichment program at Cornell at age 17, between 1954 and 2004.

“Fortunately for us, Telluride kept meticulous records on everything—high school transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation, and reviews of each student’s work by Cornell faculty who supervised them,” Williams says. “We are now collecting current information about these people’s career trajectories, successes, and failures—and the factors they believe account for their escape from the limitations of their socioeconomic backgrounds.

“We are conducting extensive interviews with each of the Telluride enrichment program alumni— and we’re hearing some amazing stories,” Williams says. “This research will help answer a critical question: How we can help youth change the direction and eventual outcomes of their lives before it’s too late?”
Anecdotal Evidence Is Appreciated

Staying in constant e-mail touch with the far-flung TLAS test sites, Williams hears that teachers are “enjoying” the process and that students are “excited” to discover that science can have some relevance to their lives.
For Williams, this is sure nice to hear while burning the midnight oil with a bunch of correlation coefficients, regressions toward the mean, and those darn confounding factors. No one ever said science was easy. It ought to be relevant, though.

Gratifying is not so bad either.
For More Information on Thinking Like a Scientist

Visit the CIRC website: www.human.cornell.edu/che/HD/CIRC
Contact Wendy M. Williams, wmw5@cornell.edu

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