UKRF - 24 Rural & Farm Youth Safety and Well Being Curriculum - Raising Hope

PROJECT ABSTRACT To achieve the outcomes of this project, investigators along with two Community and Leadership Development graduate students with a K-12 certification will solicit focus group participation with stakeholders and vocational-agricultural educators in the Bluegrass region. An investigator and a graduate student will host focus groups at county extension offices to obtain curriculum lesson content feedback for the Building Rural Resilience: A Rural and Farm Youth Safety and Well-being Curriculum. During the focus groups, the investigators will present the overall design concept of the curriculum, which will consist of standalone lessons focusing on safety and well-being in rural communities and on farm operations. Further, investigators will collaborate with Vocational-Agricultural educators and FFA leaders to determine the best school location and timeframe (i.e., fall or spring) to pilot the curriculum with 100 high school students. Preliminary lesson design will be two weeks in length to correspond with classroom learning environments. Examples of lessons include roadway safety, ATV/UTV safety, tractor and equipment safety, stress, and self-care. For curriculum evaluation, students will take a pre-test on material from all lessons of the curriculum prior to implementation of it. Following completion of all curriculum units, students will take a post-test to determine retention of material. Because the curriculum will be developed using flexible delivery (i.e. standalone lessons rather than required scaffolding) it is likely each educator will have different teaching timelines for the curriculum lessons. Consequently, post- test results may vary depending on the time lapse from individual unit completion, especially if the units are taught across a larger timespan. To account for time variation, investigators will incorporate a small pre/post-test design (i.e., bell work) at the beginning and end of each day regarding the day''s lessons (approximately 5 questions), which is routine for high school students.