How It Works

Start a track. Add electives. Earn the patch.

Small-group, four-week courses for ages 12 to 18. Here is the whole path, one choice at a time.

The four core tracks

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Take the core tracks in order; each builds on the one before. Each track is a short sequence of courses. Finish them and you earn the track’s sticker, then the patch when you add electives.

Foundation patchThink ClearlyFoundation3 courses · Ages 12 and up · Critical Thinking & Media Literacy

Prerequisite: Start here, no prerequisite

  1. 1How to Think
  2. 2Question the Source
  3. 3Media & Truth

Finish all 3 to earn the Think Clearly sticker. Add electives to earn the Foundation patch.

Forged patchWield AIForged3 courses · Ages 14 and up · AI & Digital Literacy

Prerequisite: After the Think Clearly track

  1. 1What is AI?
  2. 2How to Use AI Well
  3. 3Guardrails, Voice & Scrub

Finish all 3 to earn the Wield AI sticker. Add electives to earn the Forged patch.

Tempered patchBuild & LeadTempered2 courses + 1 optional · Ages 16 and up · Building & Project Leadership

Prerequisite: After the Wield AI track

  1. 1AI Build Lab
  2. 2Project Leader Lab
OptionalBuild for Someone Real

A bonus course that deepens the track. It is not required for the Build & Lead sticker or the Tempered patch.

Finish all 2 to earn the Build & Lead sticker. Add electives to earn the Tempered patch.

Mettle patchEntrepreneurshipMettle4 courses · Ages 16 and up · Business & Entrepreneurship

Prerequisite: After the Build & Lead track

  1. 1Idea & Validation
  2. 2Business Model
  3. 3Pricing & Money
  4. 4The Pitch

Finish all 4 to earn the Entrepreneurship sticker. Add electives to earn the Mettle patch.

Round it out with electives

Hands-on courses in three areas. They widen a teen’s base, and they are what turns a track sticker into a patch.

Building Character

Courage, responsibility, and doing hard things on purpose. The courses that ask a teen to stand behind a choice.

Situational Awareness

Reading a room, a street, and a stranger. Practical safety judgment, taught as a skill rather than a scare.

Life Skills

Money, food, first aid, making and growing things. The competence that makes an eighteen-year-old useful to themselves.

The courses in each group change term to term. The catalog is where the current list lives.

What a teen earns

Three steps, each one real and worth keeping.

A sticker, a certificate, and a recordEvery course finished
A track stickerFinish a whole track
A cloth patchThe track plus electives

Every finished course also comes with a printable certificate and a record of the course, dates, and contact hours for your homeschool portfolio.

The patch is earned, not collected. A sticker comes fast; the patch takes the full climb.

How you pay

Out of pocket$140 per course. Pay for one at a time, no commitment.
Step Up scholarshipFlorida families can use a Step Up for Students scholarship through MyScholarShop.Vendor approval in progressHow Step Up works, and how to plan ahead

Why we build it this way

  • 12Think first. We teach clear thinking before anything else.
  • 14Then AI. On top of judgment, and only with your approval.
  • 16Build and lead. Ship something real and run a group.

Most programs race to put AI in front of the youngest kid who will sit still. We would rather say not yet, and tell you why.

See the full patch laddercourses and prices to each patch

Four patches, one idea. Each patch is a core track finished, plus a spread of electives that widens as you climb. The counts are total-to-reach, not additive: Mettle’s 21 already contains Foundation’s 7.

PatchCore trackBuilding CharacterSituational AwarenessLife SkillsCourses in allAt $140 a course
FoundationThink Clearly (3 courses)2117$980
ForgedWield AI (3 courses)42211$1,540
TemperedBuild & Lead (2 courses)63315$2,100
MettleEntrepreneurship (4 courses)85521$2,940

Read the money as a pace, not a bill. A teen who starts at 12 and reaches Mettle at 18 is taking three or four courses a year, roughly $490 a year. The figures assume the standard $140 course and are a planning number, not a quote: elective prices vary, and some run well under $140. The counts are what it takes to reach each patch in total, so the higher rows already include the lower ones.