St. Maries Middle School Principal Victoria Carson worried students would lose opportunities to explore potential careers and channel their creativity when her shop program and several popular electives were cut due to budgetary constraints.
Fortunately, University of Idaho Extension has helped fill the programming void — launching a one-credit elective course in early 2025 offered during three class periods each school day.
Parents and School Board members in the small, northern Idaho logging community couldn’t be happier with the new, Extension-run Engineering, Agriculture, Range-forestry, Technology and Horticulture program (EARTH). Structuring EARTH as an elective course is a pioneering approach as most youth-tailored Extension programs are taught after school or during the summer, independent of school districts.
“We’re putting materials in front of kids that they would never be exposed to otherwise,” Carson said. “Our parents are really excited that their kids have this unique experience.”
Though the school doesn’t currently offer an official gifted and talented program, 28 high-performing youth were chosen to help pilot EARTH. Both the school and UI Extension hope to make EARTH available to the broader student body in the future.
“Our gifted and talented kids have been given an opportunity to extend their learning,” Carson said. “They’re performing above their peers and needed an opportunity to be challenged.”
EARTH was created by two first-year UI Extension employees serving Benewah County — Madison Sotin, the county’s UI Extension 4-H Youth Development program coordinator, and Lauren King, an Extension educator who specializes in agriculture, natural resources and 4-H. Sotin, King and Mary Jo O’Riley, who works for Extension with funding from the AmeriCorps program, take turns teaching EARTH classes, working together during some of the most intensive lessons.
Sotin had prior teaching experience from three summers spent working as an AmeriCorps STEM youth instructor. King had coached youth sports, served as a summer camp counselor and taught youth tour groups while working at the U of I Pitkin Forest Nursery in Moscow. Furthermore, King’s status as an associate professor reassured School Board members that qualified teachers would oversee EARTH.
“The principal and the School Board asked us, ‘Who else is doing this?’ and we were like, ‘Nobody,’” King said. “The other super unique thing is Madison and I are both new. I think we’ve made an impact on the community, we’ve shown what we’re capable of, and they’re excited to see more from us.”
The class emphasizes hands-on learning. A group of students appeared before their School Board to present the model bridges they designed and constructed during the EARTH engineering section. For another lesson, classes made miniature habitats from cardboard and art supplies depicting scenes of post-wildfire landscape recoveries. An especially popular project involved positioning matchsticks on a platform to mimic a forest, with some matchsticks spaced close together and others far apart. The students got to ignite their mock forests outdoors, demonstrating the fire risk posed by forest overgrowth.
To supplement their lessons, the Extension instructors sometimes recruit other Extension team members and professionals from the community to serve as guest lecturers. For example, Jessie Van Buren, an Extension educator based in Latah County, brought a realistic, foam beef carcass to the classroom, demonstrating how to break it down into individual cuts of meat. Tami Goetz, a 4-H area Extension educator, spoke to the class about leave-no-trace principles when recreating in the outdoors.
“I think this class is way different than all of the other ones because you actually get to do things and build things,” said a student in the EARTH program who plans to become a marine biologist. “I look forward to this class every day. It’s helped me to learn about environments and ecosystems.”
The impetus for EARTH came when the UI Extension office no longer had access to a small building it had used as a 4-H STEM center at the conclusion of a donated lease. Sotin approached Carson, who is a family friend, about the possibility of housing equipment and supplies from the STEM center in the middle school’s former shop room, suggesting it could be used for an after-school learning program offered every other day. Carson had a grander vision, encouraging them to use the equipment for teaching multiple sessions of a STEM-based class during school hours.
“We said, ‘OK then, let’s go be middle-school teachers,’” Sotin said. “It’s honestly gone much better than I thought. We have a really solid group of kids who have gotten super interested in it. They tell us time and time again that we’re their favorite class, which has given us an appreciation that we’re doing the right thing.”
Sotin and King will investigate options for hiring a full-time EARTH teacher prior to next fall, which would allow them to remain active in the program while freeing time for them to invest in their other Extension duties.
EARTH is offered on a pass-fail basis. Sotin and King will distribute surveys near the end of the school year to guide program improvements. They’ll also have students retake a test they assigned at the start of the class covering the subject matter to demonstrate their progress. They’ll submit additional data to school administrators assessing students’ level of participation in the class, respectfulness and completeness of their projects.
Published in Catching Up with CALS
