STEM Resources

Career-Connected Learning Framework

Afterschool and summer programs give youth the freedom to explore, experiment, and connect learning to real life. To help programs turn that spark of curiosity into career readiness, STEM Next created the Career-Connected Learning Framework.

This resource assists afterschool program providers in integrating
career awareness, exploration, and preparation into hands-on,
age-appropriate STEM activities grounded in real-world relevance.

Explore the framework and access recordings that break down key strategies for implementing career-connected learning in your program.

This summer, Hack Club is partnering with NASA, AMD, and GitHub to launch the Stardance Challenge, the world’s biggest STEM challenge for teens ages 13-18. Your students can choose what technical projects to build (apps, games, circuits, hardware) and get rewarded with free real-world prizes like 3D printers and Raspberry Pis. No prior software or hardware experience is needed; both beginners and experienced coders are welcome. Just show the 2-minute intro video in your class to get students signed up, and you’ll receive a free Artemis II mission patch.

Head to stardance.hackclub.com/edu to learn more about the challenge!

Challenge Based Learning, or CBL, is a flexible framework that empowers learners to co-own and co-author learning experiences, ultimately bringing Career-Connected Learning to life! This Activity Bundle from STEM Next is designed as a “quick start” for out-of-school time educators looking to bring CBL and career-connected learning into their programs. Through three hands-on lessons, youth in grades 5-8 explore science, environmental stewardship, and AI while building skills in problem-solving, communication, and collaboration. Each activity invites learners to take ownership, apply their ideas to real challenges, and create solutions that connect to their communities. Check out the CBL Activity Bundle here.

The National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) works to ensure all of America’s students, regardless of background, income, or zip code, can access and benefit from a high-quality summer learning experience every year. Check out Discover Summer, an online destination to browse summer programs across the nation and enjoy free summer learning resources.STEM Next recently shared tools and insights from the Career-Connected Learning Framework at NSLA’s Summer Planning Bootcamp. You can find all the resources we covered in the Summer Bootcamp Resource Toolkit here.

Summer educators: Looking for high-quality STEM activities? Youth Engineering Solutions has flexible STEM activities for PreK–8, designed for informal settings. Perfect for enrichment programs including summer school, afterschool, libraries, makerspaces, and STEM camps. Find bundles of activities by age group here and below.Explore activities by age:

• PreK–Kindergarten
• Lower Elementary
• Upper Elementary
• Middle School

Want to help youth choose which future STEM careers are for them? This resource from Science Buddies helps youth learn more about science and engineering careers and “test-drive” their interest in certain careers by trying one of these science experiments related to popular STEM career paths. Many kids are interested in popular science and engineering careers they hear about, but do they know what it’s really like to go to work in that career? What kinds of tasks, projects, and experiments does someone in that job really do? Trying out projects, experiments, and activities related to specific career paths is a great way to help students more clearly understand different science and engineering fields. This kind of exploration also helps students see that within the umbrella terms “scientist” and “engineer,” there are lots of interesting and exciting career paths and opportunities!

Science Buddies has paired 10 popular STEM careers with exciting hands-on activities that make it fun for kids to test-drive careers of interest. Which ones will they enjoy most?Learn more here.

Science Buddies offers more than 1,200 STEM projects and 179 activities that explicitly connect youth to STEM Careers. Find videos of the week, creative ways to teach the Scientific Method and Engineering Design Process, and the latest science news.

Visit sciencebuddies.org.