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Rural youth need more opportunities to participate in enriching STEM experiences and career pathways compared to their peers in urban areas. This study explores local mentors' role in shaping these pathways and addressing challenges related to STEM mentoring for rural youth. Through a three-year STEM program incorporating programmable sensor and 3D printing technology curricula, we establish a typology of mentors and examine their interactions with middle school youth. Analyzing recorded youth-mentor interactions, we identified several practical mentoring approaches. Our findings highlight the crucial contribution of mentors in the rural STEM learning ecosystem, as they foster possibilities and open avenues for disadvantaged youth to envision bright futures and dream of exciting opportunities in STEM. 

Rural students, schools, and communities have unique challenges that hinder academic achievement, growth, and opportunities, compared to other locales. While there is a need to study this community more, there is also a pressing need to bring the local community members together to support the future generation of learners in developing pathways that lead them to future career opportunities. This article focuses on how a Research Practice Partnership (RPP) can be developed in rural communities to support STEM pathways for local middle-school youth. RPPs are often described as long-term collaborations between both researchers and practitioners in which the participating partners leverage research to address specific persistent problems of practice. We present findings from a developing design-based RPP focused on bringing community members and organizations together to co-design opportunities for underserved youth in rural mountain communities.