Students will launch the project by comparing future-planning scenarios, meeting community partners, and identifying questions about careers, costs, and community needs that they will investigate through research and internship experiences in later phases.

Students will gather direct evidence from community partners and internship settings, organize observations into empathy artifacts, and use research, interview notes, and cost questions to identify user needs, constraints, and realistic future options for the next design phase.

Students will turn internship notes, interview evidence, pathway research, and budget data into a design brief, draft and revise a clear How Might We statement, generate several distinct solution concepts, and choose one direction using user needs, criteria, constraints, and early feasibility checks.

Students will turn selected ideas into testable low-fidelity prototypes, gather feedback from peers and community-connected users, revise using evidence and trade-off analysis, and assemble a showcase-ready planning kit with a finalized pathway, budget, and next steps.

Students will present their final future pathway portfolio and community solution prototype to classmates, teachers, families, and community partners, gather authentic feedback, and defend how their research, budgeting, internship evidence, and design revisions support their chosen next step.