Youth Teaching Youth: How a Museum-based Cross-Age Teaching Program Supports Science Learning and Long-Term Educational Success

The Youth Teaching Youth (YTY) program at the Natural History Museum of Utah is an outreach and enrichment initiative that engages middle and high school students as educators for younger learners. This longitudinal study employs quasi-experimental methods to examine YTY’s impact on middle and high school participants’ science knowledge, school attendance, and rates of high school graduation. The results indicate significant positive effects on middle school participants’ standardized test scores in science and participants’ likelihood of on-time graduation from high school. Benefits were particularly strong for participants who were economically disadvantaged and students who participated in the program for more years. While no statistically significant effects emerged for chronic absenteeism, trends favored YTY participants. Drawing on a learning ecology perspective, this manuscript interprets these findings as evidence that sustained, youth-as-educators experiences in museum settings can support both academic learning and longer-term educational persistence.