Core Plus Explore: How Embedded Career Relevance Improves Engagement in Foundational Courses

By Amanda Kocon and Mike Marriner

This fall, a new kind of video is playing in classrooms, not as a break from the coursework but as an integral part of connecting curriculum to the world. 

In one, Luis Padilla, an animal health director at the St. Louis Zoo, takes his post at the Sea Lion Sound exhibit while a group of high school students watches intently. After successfully bribing the sea lion with a treat (fish, naturally), Luis gently inspects its teeth. He then checks its eyes, before running his hands across its smooth flippers. When the examination is over, the animal leans forward, placing his wet snout on the top of Luis’ head and shoulder, making the students laugh.

The students then begin asking Luis questions: How did you end up working at a zoo? What did you study? Did you always know this is what you wanted to do?

The conversation lasts just a few minutes, but in that time, it achieves something a textbook rarely can: It makes biology tangible and shows students how an interest became a career. 

This video, and others like it, are delivered through a new partnership between Edmentum and Roadtrip Nation. Beginning with high school core courses in the 2026–2027 school year, Roadtrip Nation’s student-led career exploration interviews are being embedded directly into Edmentum Courseware, appearing exactly where students are learning the concepts those careers depend on.

Why This Matters Now

Career exploration answers two common questions students ask: “What’s the point of what I’m learning?” and “Am I ever going to use this?”

Those questions are becoming increasingly difficult to answer honestly. The careers that will define the next decade don’t all have names yet. AI is reshaping industries faster than career counselors can update their guidance. Today’s students are expected to navigate a workforce unlike the one their teachers or parents―or even their older siblings―entered.

Students feel that uncertainty. The latest Harvard Youth Poll found a measurable decline in young people’s optimism about their futures. According to the authors of The Disengaged Teen, Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop, half of young people describe themselves as operating in what researchers call “passenger mode” or going through the motions with little sense of agency. And other research demonstrates that less than 30% say they feel prepared for the postsecondary pathway they’re considering. 

Relevance is the Catalyst for Meaningful Learning―It Belongs at the Center

Career exploration has traditionally lived at the edges of the school experience: a job fair, a counseling appointment, a guest speaker during Career and Technical Education Month. These moments matter, but they’re occasional. Students ask questions about their futures every day, while solving algebra problems, reading novels, and running lab experiments.

The curriculum itself is one of the greatest opportunities to answer those questions, and technology makes that possible at scale. A video interview with a mechanical test operations engineer at NASA Stennis Space Center or with a political speech writer brings students somewhere they might otherwise never go. It exposes them to professionals whose paths looked nothing like they expected and to careers they didn’t know existed. That matters most for students whose access to professional networks, mentors, or work-based experiences is limited by geography or circumstance. 

When students see how classroom concepts are used in the workplace, academic content becomes a tool for solving real problems. Curriculum is now the resource students use to design a future-forward learning plan, not a simple requirement for graduation. 

The shift suggests a different question worth asking students, alongside the familiar one. “What do you want to be?” will always have value, but “What problems do you want to solve?” pushes students to think beyond job titles and toward purpose. That mindset holds up even as the job titles themselves keep changing.

How Relevance Works in Practice

Edmentum’s curriculum experts aligned Roadtrip Nation interviews with specific learning standards and instructional objectives, so the career content functions as a natural extension of the lesson. The videos are directly embedded at the appropriate point in core course content, so teachers don’t need to hunt down supplemental resources or redesign instruction to make the connection.

Each interview is short, unscripted, and conversational. Professionals talk honestly about uncertainty, pivots, failures, and the work that motivates them now. 

Evidence suggests this approach resonates.

In San Jose, nearly seven in 10 students reported their education felt more relevant after engaging with Roadtrip Nation content. And a Stanford study found that more than six in 10 students discovered careers they hadn’t previously considered. 

What’s more: in Clover, S.C., students using Edmentum Courseware experienced 23% fewer absences, putting real metrics around the impact of digital curriculum on student engagement.

Taken together, this data demonstrates students are more likely to show up, and persist, for coursework when it’s designed with their current needs and future interests in mind.

Anticipating a Fast-Changing Economy Means Preparing Students for Possibility 

Students don’t need every answer before they graduate. They require chances to explore, ask questions, figure out their interests, and then determine where those interests align with economic opportunity.

When learners understand how biology connects to animal science, how precalculus supports space exploration, or how English builds the skills to write compelling speeches, they can imagine themselves in the work. They know what to cross off the list and what to pursue with a passion.

Every student deserves that chance to explore their futures and to see people like them who built meaningful careers using the very knowledge they’re developing in school right now.

School should be more than preparation for graduation. It should be preparation for possibility. Sometimes that possibility starts with a sea lion, a curious student, and a biology lesson that finally makes clear why it all matters.

Amanda Kocon is Chief Strategy Officer at Edmentum, a K-12 digital learning provider serving students in all 50 states and more than 100 countries. She has spent 15 years in education, including nearly a decade at TNTP, and now leads strategy, product and research at Edmentum with a focus on outcomes for all students.

Mike Marriner is co-founder and President of Roadtrip Nation, which brings career-exploration content to more than 12,000 schools and 14 million students each year. He has co-authored all four Roadtrip Nation books, including the New York Times best-seller Roadmap, and is an Ashoka Fellow.

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