When I Grow Up

To quickly build a skilled workforce, two Kansas community colleges and Panasonic created an accelerated 8-week apprenticeship, funded by the company and featuring tailored classroom and practical training. The program aims to fast-track workers into Panasonic's new EV battery factory while providing clear career pathways through stackable credentials.

The Dry Stone Walling School of Japan is keeping the tradition of building walls out of stones collected from the neighboring environment alive by connecting students with local craftsmen. Building walls this way is a viable alternative to concrete that supports biodiversity and produces less carbon emissions.

Three students in Dillingham, Alaska launched a campaign to change the name of a local creek that included a slur against Indigenous women. After researching the issue and making presentations to school committees, tribal organizations, and conference attendees, they were successful in helping to get the name changed.

Community members are volunteering to help combat school bus driver shortages by training and receiving their CDL to fill the positions and help out the local school district.

To combat the banned books war and issues with book access, the Books Unbanned program offers free online access to the library’s entire collection for 13-to-21-year-olds. The program has already issued more than 5,100 cards and checked out 20,000 materials. And because the program is funded independently, it can offer books to people out of state.

As a result of incessant oil spills, a rural community that once relied on fishing for food and its main source of income has begun to diversify its skills and occupations by pursuing more lucrative jobs like tapping rubber trees and growing cassava. Pivoting their occupations has helped to keep families out of poverty, children in school and keep the village’s economy afloat.

Youth experiencing unstable housing in New Haven, Connecticut can build life skills in exchange for gift cards through an app built by a nonprofit. DreamKit incentivizes positive change for disadvantaged young people who have competing priorities. The nonprofit is building a pipeline which will allow them to gauge which skills employers are looking for, provide those skills through the app, and then present a list of trained youth to employers.

The Navy has implemented a growing technique in employment practices - called "minimal manning" - that requires employees to be quick, problem-solving jacks of all trades rather than experts in one particular area. The American workforce has shifted to adopt the expectation that employees should be able to jump from one role to another, therefore requiring fewer workers overall. The 40-person crew on the Navy's Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) rotates positions and is about one fifth of the size of a traditional crew.

A group of women are restoring abandoned chinampas (ancient Aztec floating farms) in and around Mexico City, combining indigenous farming techniques with university research partnerships to clean polluted waterways, protect endangered axolotls, revive sustainable year-round agriculture, and train a new generation of farmers in traditional methods.

DeWitt Clinton High School offers formal career pathway programs that allow students to gain real-world work experience and sometimes even earn industry credentials while completing their high school diploma requirements. There are pathways available for everything from visual arts to agriculture to health care careers, and the high school has seen its graduation numbers go up and absenteeism rates drop since establishing the programs.