Community partnerships help students explore career passions at earlier ages

The Chula Vista Elementary School District in California has works in collaboration with its local public library and other local businesses and organizations to expand career exploration efforts to students at a younger age through an Innovation Station — a combination makerspace and STEAM lab inspired by Qualcomm's Thinkabit Lab, eSchool News reports.The 6th-graders who visit the Innovation Station on field trips take an assessment using a framework that identifies their strengths as some combination of realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising or conventional characteristics. Then they are matched with opportunities to explore careers in their community that align with those strengths. They also participate in hands-on activities that help them gain a better idea of which careers most interest them. in collaboration with local energy-based companies, the district also recently launched another career-focused learning environment called the Energy Station. In addition, students can learn more about these careers by watching related videos on Thrively.