Eyes on Health Toolkit

Durable skills, such as communication, collaboration, adaptability, and leadership, lay the foundation for youth success in schools, careers, and life. In the world of education, durable skills go by many names, including soft skills, 21st-century skills, and essential skills. 

Pathsmith™ Durable Skills Framework: The Pathsmith™ Durable Skills Framework translates employer demand, sourced from more than 80 million job postings, into a clear, structured, and equity-conscious guide for evaluating durable skills among early-career professionals.

• Identifying Transferable Skills in Health Careers: This page helps individuals recognize transferable skills, such as communication, problem-solving, and adaptability, acquired through work, education, and life experiences.
  
• The Let’s Find Your Health Career tool helps high school youth and highly motivated middle schoolers match those foundational durable skills, personal strengths, and interests to specific healthcare roles. Together, these resources demonstrate that human-centered, adaptable skills are essential assets capable of unlocking diverse career opportunities across the healthcare sector.

• HOSA: This youth-led organization highlights durable skills by emphasizing the importance of preparing future healthcare professionals through holistic training that extends far beyond basic technical knowledge to develop the “total person.” HOSA stresses essential, long-lasting capabilities, such as leadership, collaboration, and being people-oriented, as critical requirements for working effectively on healthcare teams. Through leadership development and hands-on experience, HOSA provides a valuable resource for middle and high school youth while illustrating how these adaptable human skills enable future professionals to navigate a rapidly changing industry.

In this training, educators learn how to weave durable skills-building into their STEM activities.

Watch the Field Training

Help youth see the relevance of what they are learning by highlighting real-world applications and career pathways related to jobs they may not be as familiar with, such as hospital administration, clinical operations, public health, mental health, biotechnology, agricultural sciences, and bioengineering. Invite industry professionals to share their experiences and provide authentic insight into the diverse opportunities available across the sector.

• Health Quest: Designed specifically for middle school exploration but applicable across all grade bands, this hub, housed at North Carolina State University, uses 3D career games and practitioner interviews to connect health and behavioral science concepts directly to STEM professions.
  
• CareerXplorer: Developed by Harvard University and the Amgen Foundation, this interactive portal designed for youth across multiple grade bands features virtual career simulations, real-world skill maps, and day-in-the-life profiles co-created with life science professionals.
• BioBuilder: These programs provide educators with open-access biotechnology curricula, micro-credentials, and hands-on lab kits tailored for middle and high school environments. Initiatives like the BioBuilderClub and industry-standard Learning Labs connect youth with practicing bioengineers through real-world project design, lab experimentation, and mentorship. Resources such as Career Conversations give educators access to advice from industry professionals, helping connect classroom instruction to STEM career pathways for youth.

In this training, educators practice developing career-connected STEM activities, exchange feedback with peers, and leave with three ready-to-use activities.

Watch the Field Training

By increasing awareness among families and caregivers, educators can help youth recognize that careers in the health and life sciences are attainable, diverse, and connected to many educational and career pathways. Highlight local role models, industry professionals, veterans, technicians, engineers, researchers, and entrepreneurs, whose work contributes to healthcare, veterinary medicine, agricultural sciences, food science, bioinformatics, and genomics.

• Explore Health Careers: This multidisciplinary collaboration offers transparent breakdowns of more than 100 health professions. It outlines daily responsibilities, required education, salary ranges, and job growth forecasts, making it an excellent resource for family career conversations with middle and high school youth.
• Science Buddies: These accessible profiles for dozens of health and life science roles (e.g., biomedical engineer, epidemiologist, geneticist) are paired with parent-focused activity kits and discussion prompts, so families can conduct simple home experiments that directly tie to real-world healthcare careers.
• Five Ways to Connect Your Child to Careers: Family Guides for Elementary School, Middle School, and High School: Afterschool programs can share these three resources with families to help them engage their children in career-connected learning at home.

In this training, educators learn practical strategies to involve parents, caregivers, and community partners in STEM career exploration, with actionable steps to build ongoing family engagement and career-connected STEM activities to share with families and partners.

Watch the Field Trainings: Part I & Part II

Strong partnerships help bridge the gap between early interest and future career success, ensuring that young people can see, explore, and pursue opportunities within the rapidly growing health and life sciences fields. These connections provide youth with access to mentors, workplace experiences, internships, career speakers, college and credential information, and real-world learning opportunities.

• BioTech Builder: BioTech Builder is a specific program from BioBuilder which highlights STEM pathways by offering high school youth hands-on biotechnology curricula, laboratory experience, and industry-recognized micro-credentials in synthetic biology and biomanufacturing. Developed in collaboration with life science partners, the initiative establishes robust industry partnerships that align secondary education directly with current workforce demands. This real-world preparation equips youth with the practical skills needed for immediate entry-level biotech careers or post-secondary STEM education.
• Illumina’s DNA Day Career Exploration Portal: These interactive videos and career profiles highlight STEM pathways by introducing middle and high school youth to diverse life science roles, such as bioengineers, genetic counselors, and AI engineers. It demonstrates industry partnerships through the Genomics Learning Journeys initiative, which was co-created by the STEM Next Opportunity Fund and biotechnology leader Illumina to offer hands-on, real-world learning modules. By linking fundamental DNA concepts directly to practical applications in medicine, agriculture, and technology, the platform empowers youth to discover and prepare for future STEM careers.