The connection between classroom learning and career opportunity must be concrete.
Students need to see how academic content translates into real work, real industries and real futures. Teachers need resources and confidence to make those connections visible. Employers need meaningful ways to contribute that go beyond a guest visit or an equipment donation.
The Amgen Biotech Experience (ABE) offers one example of what that kind of support can look like when it is intentionally designed. Supported by the Amgen Foundation, ABE helps secondary teachers bring biotechnology to life through research-grade equipment and supplies, standards-aligned curriculum materials, professional learning and direct connections to the biosciences. The result is not simply a classroom enrichment program. It is a sustained partnership model that helps students build technical knowledge, understand how biotechnology is used in the real world, and explore pathways into science and health-related careers.
That distinction matters for the future of work-based learning. As schools and employers seek approaches that are both authentic and scalable, ABE illustrates how partnerships can elevate student learning when industry engagement is paired with strong instructional design, educator support and long-term infra-structure.
Start with instruction, not add-ons.
A career day may inspire students. A workplace tour may generate excitement. But neither automatically changes what happens in the classroom the next day. The Amgen Biotech Experience begins from a different premise: If students are going to understand an industry, they need opportunities to do work that reflects how knowledge and skills are used in that field.
In ABE classrooms, students engage in hands-on biotechnology labs that introduce tools and techniques used in molecular biology, including pipetting, gel electrophoresis, restriction enzyme digestion and PCR. They investigate key biology concepts while learning how those concepts connect to real applications in pharmaceutical biotechnology and precision medicine.
This kind of experience strengthens WBL because it is authentic without being superficial. Students are not only hearing about careers in biotech; they are practicing technical processes, using professional-grade materials and building fluency with the language, tools and problem-solving habits of the field. For many students, especially those who may not already see themselves in STEM, that shift is powerful. Career awareness becomes career relevance.
For CTE leaders, the lesson is clear: Successful employer partnerships should be embedded in instruction. When employers help shape the conditions for rigorous, ap-plied learning, the partnership reaches more students and has more lasting impact than a stand-alone enrichment activity ever could. Strong employer support for high-quality CTE can help teachers deliver authentic learning, connect students to real careers and build the systems that make work-based learning possible at scale.
Support teachers as the bridge between school and industry.
Another hallmark of effective employer partnerships is that they invest in educators, not only students. Teachers are the people who translate external opportunities into daily practice. Without sufficient support, even high-interest industry content can be difficult to implement consistently.
ABE recognizes teachers as the central bridge between school and the biosciences. The model provides teacher profession-al development alongside curricula and equipment, preparing educators to facilitate inquiry-based science learning and to help students understand biotechnology concepts, real-world applications and related careers. This combination matters.
Equipment alone does not create high-quality WBL. Curriculum alone does not guarantee authentic practice. Professional learning alone does not remove implementation barriers. Together, they foster the conditions for strong instruction.
This is especially important in emerging or highly technical fields, where access and confidence can vary widely across schools. By investing in teacher capacity, employer-supported partnerships can reduce inequities in who gets exposure to advanced technical content. They can also make work-based learning more durable. When teachers have the tools, training and ongoing support to lead industry-connected experiences themselves, schools are not dependent on occasional outside access to make career learning happen.
That is one reason ABE has been able to sustain and expand its reach. The program has served more than 1 million students, nearly 4,400 teachers and more than 2,000 schools across 27 program sites in 16 countries. Those numbers reflect scale, but they also reflect a struc-ture designed for implementation, not just inspiration.
Make employer engagement visible and meaningful.
Strong partnerships also give students opportunities to connect technical learning with the people and purposes behind an industry. In ABE, employer partnership is not limited to funding. The model also includes avenues for Amgen staff engagement, which helps bring career pathways to life for students.
ABE works with the Amgen Foundation to support a volunteer effort that allows staff to engage directly with ABE schools and teachers so that students can better understand careers in biotechnology. This is an important feature of the partnership model. Students benefit when they can hear from people working in the field, ask questions about preparation and pathways, and see the range of roles that contribute to scientific innovation. Not every student will become a research scientist, but many begin to imagine themselves in the broader ecosystem of biotechnology, healthcare, manufacturing, quality systems, logistics, communications or operations.
Meaningful employer engagement also helps students answer a fundamental classroom question: Why does this matter? When students can connect lab techniques to patient impact, product development, or the work of a local or global employer, learning becomes more than an academic exercise. It gains urgency and purpose.
For employers, this kind of engagement can be equally valuable. It creates a structured way to contribute to education, strengthen community relationships and help shape future talent pipelines. It also broadens the definition of who can participate. Scientists are important voices, but so are employees in technical support, operations, HR, communications. Together, they can help students see the full architecture of a modern industry.
Build a system of industry support.
Perhaps the most important takeaway from the Amgen Biotech Experience is that successful employer partnerships are built as systems. They include clear goals, defined roles, instructional resources, implementation supports and pathways for continuous engagement. ABE is designed as a connected model.
The program office, local sites, teachers and industry supporters each play a role in making the student experience possible. The partnership is therefore distributed rather than fragile. It does not depend on a single champion or a single event. It is organized so that schools can implement high-quality experiences year after year, with support structures that help maintain fidelity while still allowing local adaptation.
That systems approach offers a useful frame for CTE programs across career pathways. Whether the field is biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, clean energy, information technology or healthcare, educators and employers should ask the same questions:
- What authentic work or practice will students actually experience?
- What support do teachers need to de-liver it well?
- How will employer participation be structured so it is useful, repeatable and equitable?
- What resources and relationships are needed for the model to last beyond one grant cycle or one enthusiastic partner?
When partnerships are designed around those questions, work-based learning becomes more accessible and more instructionally sound.
What can CTE leaders take away?
ABE shows that employer partnerships can elevate student learning when they do three things well. First, they connect students to authentic technical practice, not just career awareness messaging.
Second, they equip teachers with the professional learning and resources required for strong implementation. Third, they create multiple entry points for employer participation so that industry involvement is sustained, relevant and connected to instruction.
These principles are highly transferable. A local employer partnership does not need to replicate a global biotechnology initiative to apply the same logic. A manufacturing partner might help schools design quality-control simulations using industry tools. A hospital system might support instructor training tied to patient-care technologies. An energy employer might collaborate on project-based challenges connected to grid resilience or clean power systems. In every case, the most effective partnership is one that strengthens teaching and helps students experience the habits, tools and expectations of real work.
The future of WBL will depend on more than access to workplaces. It will depend on the quality of the learning architecture that surrounds those experiences. The Amgen Biotech Experience demonstrates what is possible when employer partnership is treated not as an add-on, but as a strategy for teaching, relevance and opportunity.
In that sense, ABE is more than a program. It is a model for how education and industry can work together to ensure that student learning is rigorous, career-connected and genuinely transformative.
Jessica Juliuson is a project director at Education Development Center, where she supports strategy and implementation for the Amgen Biotech Experience. She works across education and industry to expand access to high-quality, career-connected learning experiences.
