This spring, Roosevelt Middle School opened its doors for a first-of-its-kind celebration—its inaugural Global Showcase. The event capped the school’s first year as a Global Leaders partner with Participate Learning and highlighted far more than student projects from grades six through eight. It was a powerful glimpse into how one school is redefining career readiness through student agency, community impact, and global learning.
Throughout the year, students developed what we at Participate Learning call global competencies—the human intelligence skills like empathy, critical thinking, and communication. Guided by the Blueprint for a Better World, these skills were embedded across academic subjects and advisory sessions, shaping how students tackled real challenges—from food insecurity to environmental health—through meaningful local action.
Their work reflected a central truth of the Global Leaders framework: Local action can drive global change. This “local is global” mindset helped students see that solving issues close to home is part of building a better world. By engaging in real-world, problem-based learning, students are developing the skills they need to thrive in future careers, strengthening essential human capacities like empathy, curiosity, adaptability, and ethical decision-making that are in high demand across industries.
In a world shaped by rapid innovation and global competition, these human intelligence skills are what will set Roosevelt’s students apart. Through their purposeful learning and leadership, they are already preparing to thrive in the future workforce.
Sixth Grade: Fighting Food Insecurity with Purpose
For sixth graders, the global challenge of ending hunger took center stage. Students began by exploring food insecurity on a global scale, then zoomed in to understand its impact within their own community. Through a partnership with East Mountain Food Bank, they interviewed staff, studied local data, and asked thoughtful questions to identify community-specific needs. Their yearlong work included fundraising for fresh food during Thanksgiving and organizing targeted non-perishable food drives aligned to those needs.
At the showcase, students shared what they learned and presented solutions. From creating allergy-conscious proposals to using math skills to analyze the volume of resources needed per family, projects reflected students’ ability to merge academic content with real-world challenges. These efforts supported the food bank and helped students grow in research, communication, and problem-solving—essential skills for their future careers.
Seventh Grade: Passion Projects That Inspire Leadership
Seventh-grade students focused on connecting their personal passions to global leadership. Whether exploring how gymnastics fosters global competencies like flexibility and empathy, researching historical icons who shaped social movements, or advocating for therapy animals on campus, each student’s project was rooted in a meaningful connection to a global challenge—including improving health and protecting land ecosystems.
A standout project featured a student who brought in sheep and chicks from her 4-H club, using her passion for agriculture to educate others about sustainable land practices and potential careers in environmental stewardship. These projects empowered students to explore their interests, develop their voice, and connect to future pathways that reflect both passion and purpose.
This real-world application of academic learning is a core element of the Global Leaders framework. Students were learning content and applying it in ways that fostered inquiry, creativity, and critical thinking, setting the stage for long-term career exploration and global competitiveness.
Eighth Grade: Local Action, Global Thinking
As the leaders of their school and emerging changemakers in the world, Roosevelt’s eighth graders spent their final year leading with purpose and vision, taking on community-centered action that created meaningful change locally and connected to global challenges. Their “Local Is Global” projects addressed real challenges in their school and neighborhood while aligning with multiple Blueprint focus areas, such as promoting quality education, supporting sustainability, and protecting land ecosystems. Students revived the school recycling program, developed trail maps to promote wellness, and partnered with local organizations to repair a trailhead and prevent erosion.
One group created custom lesson plans for an event they designed—the seventh-grade World’s Fair—while another developed conservation-themed coloring books to teach younger students about environmental stewardship. These projects gave students the opportunity to explore career-ready skills in fields like education, environmental science, and public service, while also seeing how their efforts at home connect to broader global issues.
What made these projects especially powerful was the ownership students took in crafting solutions and committing to long-term sustainability. Their showcase presentations weren’t simply end-of-year displays—they were evidence of growing agency, leadership, and a genuine desire to make a difference in their own community.
How Global Competencies Drive Career Readiness
As the world continues to change, the skills students need for the future are evolving too. At Roosevelt, students are learning not only how to adapt to these shifts but also how to lead through them. While technology may streamline tasks and enhance efficiency, it will never replace the human strengths Roosevelt students have been building all year: empathy, communication, intercultural understanding, and flexibility.
These human intelligence skills were at the heart of every project shared during the Global Showcase. Whether restoring a trailhead, designing educational materials for younger students, or analyzing food insecurity in their community, students were learning how to problem-solve, collaborate, and act with purpose. The Global Leaders framework helped shape those experiences, not by adding something new, but by deepening what was already happening—connecting classroom learning to real-world challenges in ways that felt personal and meaningful.
In practicing these skills across content areas and grade levels, Roosevelt students are preparing for more than just high school or college. They’re preparing to thrive in future careers and community roles where curiosity, compassion, and clear communication will matter just as much as technical knowledge. And the Global Showcase gave the community a chance to see that growth in action—offering a glimpse of what’s possible when students are trusted to lead.
Showcasing a Vision for the Future
Roosevelt’s first annual Global Showcase was more than an event—it was a vision realized. It demonstrated what’s possible when students are empowered to lead with empathy, think critically, and see the connections between their local lives and the global community.
As Roosevelt looks ahead to another year of global learning, one thing is clear: in a world where AI is accelerating change, it is the human intelligence skills—curiosity, empathy, communication, and flexibility—that will define true leadership. And Roosevelt Middle School is helping students build those skills every day.
In preparing students to be globally competent and career-ready, Roosevelt is not just investing in their future—it’s investing in our shared future.
