CALIFORNIA
LIVING LABS
FOR LIBERATORY FUTURES IN EDUCATION
A CATALYST FOR CHANGE
Young people are telling us plainly that the system wasn't built for the world they're inheriting. Change is in the air. Districts are redesigning learning. Youth organizations are pushing for something better. Researchers and funders are ready to invest. What’s needed is a catalyst to bring it all together. That’s where we come in.
WHAT WE'RE BUILDING
A statewide initiative that infuses belonging, purpose, and agency into the future of learning.
Starting with young people and families least well served by the current system, the Living Labs brings them together with educators, researchers, and community leaders to create an enduring space where everyone builds trust, shares power, wrestles with hard questions, and co-authors a new vision for secondary learners.
HOW IT WORKS
The CoLab uses field intelligence to build frameworks for real-world change. Learn more using the California Poppy (our State Flower) as a guide.
THE STEM
Carries nutrients to every other part of the plant. This is the CoLab: twelve people (six youths and six system leaders) holding the shared vision and feeding it into everything else we build.
THE PETALS
Open and become the bloom itself. These are the local Activation Labs, where ecosystem leaders, families, and young people test the vision together and find out what it actually looks like in practice.
THE POLLINATORS
Carry pollen from flower to flower. These are the national thought leaders, futurists, and researchers who move between us and the wider field, cross-pollinating what we're learning here with what's happening everywhere else.
THE SEEDS
Are what the plant leaves behind, built to take root somewhere new. These are our knowledge products and policy recommendations, the parts that will grow into the future.
Local wisdom informs statewide learning. Statewide learning strengthens local action. The process repeats and everyone flourishes. Isn’t science cool?
GET INVOLVED
The future of education will not be authored by any one institution. It will be imagined and created together. What does that mean for you?
YOUNG PEOPLE
Trade tokenism for equal voice, shared decision-making and co-authorship of innovative ideas & prototypes.
FAMILIES AND COMMUNITY LEADERS
Move from invited guests to local experts and full collaborators envisioning new possible futures.
EDUCATION AND SYSTEM LEADERS
Participate in a safe-to-learn space to dream and test bold ideas and future-ready designs.
BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY
Contribute to future-ready visions by articulating durable skills needed for economic mobility in the Age of AI.
WHEN & WHERE
Our first Activation Lab convenes in Oakland on November 7, 2026, from 10AM to 4PM. Location to come.