When the Boca Raton sixth grade team set out to create a signature experience for their students this year, they knew they wanted something bold—something that would reflect the future-forward spirit of the curriculum and the school’s commitment to innovation.
The idea took shape following Pine Crest President Dr. Dana Markham ’18H’s back-to-school remarks, which encouraged faculty to consider how best to prepare students for a future that is constantly evolving. With that in mind, the team began to ask: What will the jobs of tomorrow look like, and how can we equip students to imagine and invent them?
That is how the “My Future Starts Here” Career Fair was born.
More than a culminating event, the fair is the product of an interdisciplinary journey rooted in research, teamwork, creativity and communication. Students began by exploring specific industries—technology, agriculture, health care or space—and investigating how these fields are expected to evolve over the next few decades. They considered questions like: What new challenges might arise? What skills will future professionals need? What roles might emerge that do not yet exist?
To help students reflect on their strengths and interests, a custom personality survey was designed to group them into one of five future-oriented “types:” Dreamers, Designers, Defenders, Discoverers or Doers. Based on their results, students were placed into teams to begin imagining a job that could exist in the future, aligned with their strengths and values.
Each team then collaborated to create a job concept, determine necessary qualifications and training and design a visual presentation. The project also required students to script and produce a recruitment video to introduce their job to an audience. These presentations would later be shared during the fair.
The Career Fair itself featured interactive stations where students showcased their future job ideas to fifth grade students visiting the fair. Each team presented a poster, shared their video and responded to questions in real time. Fifth graders rotated through the stations, engaging with presenters and even voting for the job they found most compelling. In doing so, younger students got a preview of what awaits them in Middle School, where sixth graders take on the roles of mentors and leaders.
The range of ideas presented at the fair reflected both thoughtful research and fearless creativity. Among the most engaging job concepts were Teleportation Portal Designers, who help first responders reach emergencies faster, and Endangered Species Gene Editors, who create hybrid animals capable of adapting to climate change. Other student-created roles included Beauty Therapists, empathetic telehealth providers who help people feel good about themselves, and Flame Scouts, who use drones to fight wildfires. One team even imagined a future where AI judges require human oversight, proposing the role of Judicial System Robot Managers to ensure fairness in a fully automated court system.
The fair was designed to be engaging and imaginative, but is deeply connected to Pine Crest’s educational philosophy. It reflects the Middle School Entrepreneurship Skills initiative and aligns directly with the 2024–29 Strategic Plan, emphasizing:
These strands are embedded into the assessment rubric for the project. Students are evaluated not only on the quality of their final product, but on how effectively they work together, how deeply they engage with their research and how well they communicate their ideas.
This project is uniquely suited for sixth grade students, who are at a moment in their learning journey where independence, imagination and emerging leadership intersect. At this age, students are beginning to make more choices about their academic paths, and they still possess a strong sense of play and possibility. The project taps into those qualities and allows students to explore future scenarios in a creative and meaningful way.
By developing future jobs, students are also developing future-ready skills. They are learning how to ask big questions, collaborate across differences and present ideas with confidence. They are thinking critically about industries that are changing rapidly, and imagining roles that will help solve the problems of tomorrow.
Though the final products may vary, the learning outcomes are consistent: confidence in communication, excitement about innovation and a deeper understanding of their own strengths. The process invites students to lead with imagination, think beyond what currently exists and develop the mindset of a designer, a builder and a change-maker.
While the project may evolve in years to come, one thing is already clear—these sixth grade students are not just dreaming about the future. They are building it.