4-H is positioned to engage youth in the areas of environment and engineering. This article shares how Minnesota is engaging youth and adults to identify and solve community issues with the use of an aquatic remotely operated vehicle (ROV). After creating a new program design, the team has attracted new skilled volunteers and new youth to create youth-adult partnerships to take action in the community

Jirik, Patrick

McNeill, Brian

Rugg, Bradley

English

Clemson University: TigerPrints

The Journal of Extension Volume 52 Number 6 Article 9 12-1-2014 4-H and Aquatic Robotics Brian McNeill University of Minnesota Extension, mcnei006@umn.edu Patrick Jirik University of Minnesota Extension, pjirik@umn.edu Bradley Rugg University of Minnesota Extension, ruggx002@umn.edu This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License. Recommended Citation McNeill, B., Jirik, P., & Rugg, B. (2014). 4-H and Aquatic Robotics. The Journal of Extension, 52(6), Article 9. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/joe/vol52/iss6/9 This Ideas at Work is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences at TigerPrints. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Journal of Extension by an authorized editor of TigerPrints. For more information, please contact kokeefe@clemson.edu. December 2014 Volume 52 Number 6 Article # 6IAW7 Ideas at Work4-H and Aquatic RoboticsAbstract 4-H is positioned to engage youth in the areas of environment and engineering. This article shares how Minnesota is engaging youth and adults to identify and solve community issues with the use of an aquatic remotely operated vehicle (ROV). After creating a new program design, the team has attracted new skilled volunteers and new youth to create youth-adult partnerships to take action in the community.   BackgroundMinnesota's surface water area is one of the greatest in the nation. Minnesota contains a three-way continental divide with flowage from Minnesota going North to Hudson Bay, East to the St. Lawrence River, and South to the Gulf of Mexico. Minnesota's rural and urban communities have a distinct and compelling opportunity to engage more youth citizens in stewardship of water resources and water monitoring. The Department of Natural Resources currently engages over 2,600 volunteers annually to monitor lake levels and to care for the state's rivers. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency engages 500 volunteers to monitor water transparency at 700 sites across the state. Minnesota 4-H Aquatics Robotics is designed to attract, engage, and educate youth who work to benefit the waters and government agencies of Minnesota while also providing abundant place-based learning opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).The Minnesota 4-H Aquatic Robotics program provides youth with the opportunity to apply underwater robotic technology by designing and creating a Seaperch underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) in a team setting. Overall, the main goals of the program are to provide an opportunity for young people to become more scientifically grounded and civically engaged. The program aims to provide youth with the opportunity to learn scientific and engineering concepts, to think like a scientist, and to develop positive attitudes towards science and their own abilities. Additionally, they are able to explore their local watershed, make public presentations, learn about environmental issues, and become more involved in their communities.Brian McNeill Extension Educator, 4-H Youth Development Morris, Minnesotamcnei006@umn.eduPatrick Jirik Extension Educator, 4-H Youth Development Rochester, Minnesotapjirik@umn.eduBradley Rugg Director of 4-H Fairs and Animal Science Programs Minneapolis, Minnesotaruggx002@umn.eduUniversity of Minnesota ExtensionCreating the ProgramThrough Minnesota 4-H Aquatic Robotics, youth have the opportunities to become more civically engaged and scientifically grounded young people. Many of today's most difficult challenges require both innovation and scientific approaches to address them in new ways. The project is designed to assess the power of combining an engaged and inquiring mind with new technology to generate real world solutions to real world problems.The Minnesota 4-H Aquatic Robotics team was very intentional about the model used to deliver the program. The program model includes these elements: recruiting new specialized volunteers, financial partners, community and campus partnerships, STEM club format, required training, and destination event. A common evaluation process was created to flow through all of the elements of the model. Social media was added later and used for youth to exchange ideas and share best engineering practices and community outreach. This community of learners provides an identity and network for youth who may otherwise find themselves isolated in sparsely populated areas of Minnesota.Young people who participate in informal, out-of-school time science programs like Minnesota 4-H Aquatic Robotics learn scientific and mathematical concepts, strengthen their ability to think like scientists, develop skills using related language and tools, and gain positive attitudes about science and self. A promising finding from evaluation data is that most youth agreed that 4-H Aquatic Robotics challenges them to use their mind. This item is an indicator of the power of learning within the project.Youth who are interested in science may be more likely to participate in 4-H and particularly in science-related programming and also to select high level science coursework in high school (Heck, Carlos, Barnett, & Smith, 2012). Through Minnesota 4-H Aquatic Robotics youth have the opportunity to become more civically engaged and scientifically grounded young people. Many of today's most difficult challenges require both innovation and scientific approaches to address them in new ways. This project is designed to assess the power of combining an engaged and inquiring mind with new technology to generate real world solutions to real problems.The teams of youth and adults who have been trained have been using the ROV for addressing environmental issues in their communities. Some examples have been:Lake clean up (one team collecting 100 pop cans off the bottom of the lake)Watershed monitoring (creating partnerships and taking and submitting data)Lake and river exploration (using the ROVs to identify invasive species)A New Model for Volunteer DevelopmentMinnesota 4-H Aquatic Robotics created a new model for volunteer development. The use of hands-on, minds-on educational tools like robots may reverse the downward trend in STEM fields (Barker & Ansorge, 2006). Counties that sent teams to the training included an adult volunteer as part of the team. This adult would be responsible to support the team when returning to their counties, to helpIdeas at Work 4-H and Aquatic Robotics JOE 52(6)©2014 Extension Journal Inc. 1 pull the group together and to keep them active.From survey feedback, volunteers' comments demonstrated an understanding of youth being engaged and the principles of positive youth development. One adult said, "The kids learn and accomplish more when you don't provide all the answers, but when they are provided opportunities to learn."This model proves to be more sustaining for the teams. With the network of a supportive adult and a community partner, the teams were more successful for continuing and growing the program.The FutureWith the ever-changing environment there will always be work for the 4-H Aquatic Robotics program. The next area that Minnesota will be focusing on is the use of the aquatic ROV and invasive species education. Invasive species such as invasive carp and Zebra Mussels have found their way into the lakes and rivers of Minnesota. Youth will have the opportunity to educate lake homeowners and citizens about the spread of invasive species.RecommendationsThe team would like to share some examples of success as the program has been launched.Team Success—To have genuine team success you must recruit and train adults with the team. At least one adult team member can help with the sustainability of the team. New specialized volunteers bring excitement, technical expertise and a willingness to try new ideas.Community Partner—An adult from the community is crucial to the success of the team. DNR officers, watershed scientists and engineers are a few examples of a community team member.Training—The training format was 10 hours over 2 days. Training elements included: hands-on engineering, hands-on water quality or invasive species training, and practicing citizenship engagement.ReferencesBarker, B., & Ansorge, J. (2006). Using robotics as an educational tool in 4-H. Journal of Extension, [On-line], 44(5) Article 5IAW6. Available at: http://www.joe.org/joe/2006october/iw6.phpBarker, B., Nugent, G., Grandgenett, N., & Hampton, A. (2008). Examining 4-H robotics in the learning of science, engineering and technology topics and related student attitudes. Teacher Education faculty Publications. Paper 35. Retrieved from: http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/tedfacpub/35Bers, M., & Portsmore, M. (2005, March). Teaching partnerships: Early childhood and engineering students teaching math and science through robotics. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 14(1).Druin, A., & Hendler, J. A. (2000). Robots for kids: Exploring new technologies for learning. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.Harmon, L., & Gleason, M.(2009). Underwater explorers: Using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) toIdeas at Work 4-H and Aquatic Robotics JOE 52(6)©2014 Extension Journal Inc. 2 engage youth with underwater environments. Children, Youth and Environments. 19(1). Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.19.1.0125Heck, K. E., Carlos, R. M., Barnett, C., & Smith, M. H. (2012). 4-H participation and science interest in youth. Journal of Extension, [On-line], 50(2) Article 2FEA5. Available at: http://www.joe.org/joe/2012april/a5.phpMcNeill, B., Jirik, P., Courneya, J., & Rugg, B.(2012). Creating new program opportunities with Sspecialized staff. Journal of Extension. [On-line], 50(1). Available at: http://www.joe.org/joe/2012february/tt4.phpRobinson, M. (2005). Robotics-driven activities: Can they improve middle school science learning?. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 25(1), 73-84.Rusk, N., Resnick, M., Berg, R., & Pezalla-Granlund, M. (2008). New pathways into robotics: Strategies for broadening participation. Journal of Science Education and Technology. 17(1), pp 59-69.Sklar, E. I., Johnson, J. H., & Lund, H. H. (2000). Children learning from team robotics: Robocup junior 2000. Educational Research Report, Department of Design and Innovation, Faculty of Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.Whitlock, J. (2007). The role of adults, public space, and power in adolescent community connectedness. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(4), 499-518.Youniss, J., Bales, S., Christmas-Best, V., Diversi, M., McLaughlin, M., & Silbereisen, R. (2002), Youth civic engagement in the twenty-first century. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 12: 121–148. doi: 10.1111/1532-7795.00027Copyright © by Extension Journal, Inc. ISSN 1077-5315. Articles appearing in the Journal become the property of the Journal. Single copies of articles may be reproduced in electronic or print form for use in educational or training activities. Inclusion of articles in other publications, electronic sources, or systematic large-scale distribution may be done only with prior electronic or written permission of the Journal Editorial Office, joe-ed@joe.org.If you have difficulties viewing or printing this page, please contact JOE Technical SupportIdeas at Work 4-H and Aquatic Robotics JOE 52(6)©2014 Extension Journal Inc. 3

4-H and Aquatic Robotics

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