Early Career Discovery

What if real-world learning could begin right alongside elementary reading, writing, and math?

That’s the vision behind the iINNOVATE Regional Skills Lab. Throughout Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara counties, elementary classrooms receive monthly kits that help students explore future careers through inquiry-based STEM learning.

Students in K–6 are not just reading about industry; they’re exploring real-world jobs through hands-on activities that spotlight seven key regional industries, including Health & Life Sciences, AgTech, and Precision Manufacturing.

Career research shows that children begin forming ideas about future roles as early as age seven, and early exposure to career-connected learning improves motivation and helps students connect schoolwork with real-life opportunity.

“At this age, exposure to career possibilities can have a transformative impact,” said Katie Peters, longtime SLCUSD teacher on assignment with iINNOVATE. “We designed the Skills Lab to bring careers into classrooms so that students can see their potential, not years from now, but today.”

Each kit features hands-on projects—one month focused on health and life sciences, the next on clean energy, the next on aerospace or agtech—so students are not only building, problem solving, or designing; they’re beginning to imagine themselves in these roles. Every lesson also includes a short video featuring local professionals, recorded in real workplaces, sharing what they do and how they got there. These stories are intentionally diverse, because when students can see someone like them doing meaningful work, it creates a bridge between imagination and possibility.

“Our goal is to give children equitable access to 21st century learning opportunities that make them feel capable, curious, and confident in their potential,” says Christine Robertson, Executive Director of the iINNOVATE Regional Skills Lab. “By bringing industry-connected projects into elementary classrooms, we make career pathways tangible—and inspire students to imagine themselves in them.

At its heart, the iINNOVATE Skills Lab is about unlocking opportunity—starting early and reaching wide. By embedding real-world, career-connected learning into public schools as early as kindergarten, the program ensures that each student, regardless of background, can see a future for themselves in the industries shaping our region.