The alarm goes off early for many rural Pennsylvanians. After early morning chores, children board buses for an hour-long ride to school. One rural district is so remote that there are just 19 seventh-graders. How does this rural experience shape future education, a career and family life? The Rural Youth Education Project, currently under way at Penn State, seeks to find out.

"Pennsylvania has the third largest rural population in the nation, and currently there's not much data on the experiences of our youth," said Dr. Anastasia Snyder, project director and assistant professor of rural sociology and demography. "We’re working to change that."

Part of the effort is an attempt to stem Pennsylvania's "brain drain." Between 1990 and 2000, Pennsylvania's population of young adults declined by nearly 30,000 residents, most of whom were college-educated. This out-migration leaves behind a lower-educated and less-skilled population. "The problem is especially acute in rural areas where the range of employment opportunities is more limited, and many youth feel they must leave to achieve their career goals," said Snyder.

 

Researchers Follow a Group of Students
Snyder and colleagues Dr. Diane McLaughlin and Dr. Leif Jensen are working with the legislative agency Center for Rural Pennsylvania to conduct a longitudinal study of 2,000 rural youth in a representative sample of 11 rural school districts. The Rural Youth Education Project will follow this group of students as they move from seventh to 11th grade to three years after graduation. "We hope our findings will help state and local officials offer more informed and creative initiatives to make living, working and raising a family in rural Pennsylvania an attractive option for our most promising youngsters," said Snyder.

While the focus of their study is on educational and career development, researchers hope to help all youth maximize their potential through strengthened family connections, the community and schools.

	Chess helps children develop higher-order thinking skills.

Challenge a chess master, think like an archeologist or even solve a murder--children can learn from experts at Penn State. This summer, youth ages 5 to 18 will be flexing their minds through an expanded selection of summer camps, offered through Conferences and Institutes, with an emphasis on the academic. Here are some of the latest additions:

• Castle Chess Camp, the oldest chess camp in the United States, will be held at Penn State for the first time ever. The camp brings together some of the best teachers and scholastic players from across the country, including three-time U.S. champion and grandmaster Joel Benjamin. Chess is a powerful tool for developing higher-order thinking skills, creativity, numerical and verbal aptitudes, and memory.
  
• In the new Materials in Art and Archeology Camp, children will investigate ancient pottery, learn about the origins of color and study copper smelting.
  
• The Eberly College of Science's Action Potential Science Experience--which features the popular Harry Potter- and CSI-themed summer camps--now welcomes the very young, with half-day programs for children entering grades K-3. That's in addition to its resident and day programs for fourth- through eighth-graders and junior mentoring program for students in grades 10 through 12. The popular Weather Camp has also expanded its offerings--it now includes programs for both younger and older kids. Visit http://pennstateyouth.org for more information.
  
  

The adage "prevention is the best medicine" is being put into practice through PROSPER (PROmoting School-community-university Partnerships to Enhance Resilience), a joint project of Penn State, Iowa State University and the community.

The project aims to build networks with schools, extension educators, universities and community members to provide life-skills-enhancing training for youth and families--employing programs that have been shown to reduce teen problem behaviors like smoking, drinking and drug use.

"PROSPER is an innovative model defining specific community needs and delivering scientifically tested programs to make the community better," said Christine A. Tomascik, PROSPER prevention coordinator and Penn State Cooperative Extension educator.

For example, the research-based "Strengthening Families" program is designed to help ease the transition from childhood to adolescence--targeting the critical time when children begin to make either good or bad choices. The program teaches youth how to handle peer pressure and provides parents with specific skills to guide children toward making healthy decisions. It is currently being piloted in seven Pennsylvania school districts, along with the drug and alcohol prevention program "Project Alert" for seventh- and eighth-graders.

"[PROSPER] can make a real difference in preventing problems with our youth if we all work together to support it," said Gregory A. Skrepenak, commissioner in participating Luzerne County.

Added Penn State's Dr. Janet A. Welsh, PROSPER project field director, "Because of its land-grant status and ties to communities through the Cooperative Extension system, Penn State is uniquely positioned to facilitate community-based initiatives such as PROSPER."