What We Learned from Our Youth Futurescapers
- Andy Lott
- Jul 18
- 5 min read
By: Andy Lott
Key Insights
Hiring young people as co-creators transforms programs into powerful learning ecosystems that model equity, relevance, and innovation.
When youth are trusted to lead, their visions produce not only bold ideas but practical solutions that reimagine what learning can be.
“The IAN Hub should prepare us for a future that hasn’t happened yet.”- Akilah Bello, Futurescaper
When one of our youth team members shared this vision during a public pitch, the room got quiet. That sentence captured the urgency, creativity, and hope driving this summer’s work at the Center for the Future of Learning.
This wasn’t just a youth employment program. It was a real-time collaboration and living experiment on what happens when young people are hired not just to participate, but to co-create the future of education in Nevada.
Our Youth Futurescapers were a cohort of 13 young people hired as part-time summer employees at CFL. Over four weeks, they worked as designers, researchers, and provocateurs, helping us imagine how learning in Nevada can evolve. Their energy, clarity, and big-picture thinking challenged us to do better and gave us powerful insights that shape our work going forward.
What We Learned
1. Co-creation with youth strengthens every layer of the work
Our Futurescapers weren’t just there to observe or give feedback, they were integral to the process. From shaping the upcoming Almanac for the Future of Learning to pitching a concept for a new learning space, their fingerprints are on every page, every slide, every idea.
The IAN Hub is a learning research and development lab that began as a concept designed by young people in 2022 and took real shape this summer with our Futurescapers. Their ideas around physical space, transportation, membership, integrated AI, and revenue models, built a robust vision that they pitched to educators, business leaders, and community members during a public presentation.
“The best part of being a Futurescaper? Knowing my ideas about education actually matter and that I’m not the only one thinking this way.”
- Derek Figueroa, Futurescaper
Given how critical youth co-creation is to our work, CFL is committed to hiring young people in perpetuity for roles on our staff as well as ongoing opportunities.
Community reflection:Are there ways young people are contributing ideas to your work? How might young people shift not just your output, but your entire process?
2. Young people are craving learning that’s relevant, creative, and alive
Again and again, our Futurescapers told us what they wanted: learning that feels alive. Not rote memorization. Not outdated textbooks. They want:
Hands-on learning
Career-connected experiences
Opportunities to explore their passions
Safe learning environments rooted in belonging
Access to emerging technologies like AI, VR, and digital storytelling tools
“The IAN hub is a place of preparation, innovation and future thinking individuals.”
-Sebastian Rios, Futurescaper
To them, schools currently feel like an unfair and unhelpful game they play to get to the next level of college or career. They want to learn in more relevant ways, but they are also worried about losing out on credit from the existing system.
Whether developing their pitch or dreaming up the story of an archaeology student from the future who time travels back to 2025, they brought a mix of practicality and idealism that pushed our thinking in bold directions.
Community reflection:How are your learning environments making space for curiosity, relevance, and exploration to feel more “alive” to young people? How do we build a new system without disadvantaging young people from accessing critical opportunities like college?
3. The Portrait of a Nevada Learner is more than a framework — it’s alive
Throughout their work, the Futurescapers naturally embodied the competencies outlined in the Portrait of a Nevada Learner:
Communication was central in their public presentations and peer collaboration
Empathy shaped how they approached co-design
Resilience came through as they revised their contributions and tackled big challenges
Empowerment showed up in their ownership of the work and reflection on the process
Collaboration defined the group’s entire rhythm
Their pitch for programming at the IAN Hub sits at the intersection of the Portrait of a Nevada Learner, youth interests, and strong community and business partnerships. It creates opportunities for meaningful impact, innovative learning experiences, and real-world skill application.
“The Portrait is the foundation for rethinking learning relationships, experiences, and environments in ways that center learner’s identities, needs, and aspirations now and into the future. It became their compass for guiding conversations and designs that made the future of learning tangible to all of us.”
-Jeanine Collins, Chief Impact Officer, CFL
Community reflection:How are the values of the Portrait of a Nevada Learner showing up in practice? Are they guiding design and dialogue or are they just a poster on the wall?
What’s Next?
On August 11, we’ll release the Almanac for the Future of Learning, a publication created by the Futurescapers that forecasts where Nevada’s learning environments might be headed. It’s bold, beautiful, full of joy, and is a reflection of the young people who made it.
Their work also laid the foundation for what comes next: a community steering committee to shape the next phase of the IAN Hub. This group will be made up of young people, families, educators, artists, business and community partners who will dig into building out a plan to launch our beta IAN hub in 2026.
What Can Our Community Do?
Based on everything we’ve learned this summer, here are recommendations we hope our community will carry forward:
Design With Youth
Hire and pay young people to contribute to program and systems design
Invite them into decision-making, not just listening sessions
Create structures for real co-creation, not one-time feedback
“Young people are not the future… we are the now.”
Alejandro Quevedo
Sustain the Movement
Make learning relevant and joyful by embracing hands-on, curiosity-driven experiences
Prioritize shared values and connection as the foundation for innovation
Use learner profiles like the Portrait of a Nevada Learner as active guides for culture and strategy
Invest in long-term youth-led innovation, not just pilot programs, but ecosystems
If this summer taught us anything, it’s this: the future of learning isn’t something we have to wait for.
It’s being co-created, right here and right now, by young people who are ready to lead, dream, and build.
And we are lucky to be learning with them.
