Math

1. Graphing Career Trends

Have students select an occupation from the Career Clusters in the Work section. Each student will research the history of the selected occupation and graph the varying income levels for this occupation throughout history. Based on their research, they may wish to include a graph for occupational outlook and growth for the selected occupation.

2. School Survey

Throughout this activity, students will design and conduct a research study involving other students within the school. The content of the study should involve occupational information from the Choices Planner career profiles. Students will need to develop the methodology for the study, design the survey or research method, develop a representative sample within the school, conduct the research and interpret the results. Student will need to include appropriate charts or graphs in their report.

3. Math at Work

Invite representatives from several occupations within the community to a math class. Ask each representative to demonstrate how he or she utilizes math within his or her occupation. For example, you might have a police officer demonstrate how they calculate the length of skid mark in order to determine speed and fault in accidents. Students should study the career profile of each community member carefully before they visit in order to have a better understanding of their occupation and to formulate intelligent and relevant questions.

4. Heavy Math

In this activity, each student will research and present information on the occupation from their Career Finder results that relies most heavily on math or math theory. Students will discuss how math is utilized within that occupation, what math is necessary and if they are still interested in this occupation after the research project.

5. Six Math Groups...Interesting!

Using your school's Interest Profiler results as a whole, have students calculate the percent of students within each of Holland's Codes (RIASEC). You can also calculate the percent of each class that falls within each Holland Code. It might also be interesting to examine the percent of occupations that fall within each Holland Code and examine the relationship between these calculations.

6. Math? Do I Need Math?

Have each student generate a list of at least 10 potential careers from their Career Finder results. Ask each student to find an occupation on his or her list that does not require the use of math or mathematical theory. Each student will need to research the occupation and write a brief description of the math tasks associated with each occupation.

7. Show Me the Money!

In this activity, ask each student to select an occupation from his or her assessment results. Each student will determine the average wages for that occupation and calculate a budget for living within those wages. Students should consider taxes, insurance, cost of living, recreational expenses and the education expenses of the selected occupation. Does this occupation fit their selected lifestyle? What level of education will be necessary to achieve this level of income? Are they willing to achieve this level of education?

8. College Budget

Students start by selecting one occupation from their Career Finder results. They can then research and select a college, university or training program that would support that occupation. Now, have each student calculate the total cost for the required education. Students will need to consider the cost of tuition, room and board, transportation, books, entertainment. They can also factor in any family contributions they might receive towards these costs.

9. Chart Your Salary

Have each student graph the salaries versus the necessary educational levels for the top 10 occupations on their Career Finder results.

10. Compare and Constrast Occupations

Each student will write a lifestyle statement about what he or she wants out of life, being as specific as possible (a car, a house, pets, an apartment, a college education, high school education, associates degree, vacations, etc.). Have students select two occupations from the Interest Profiler or Work Values results. Each student will need to research the occupations and examine how the selected occupation aligns with his or her lifestyle statement.

11. Math is Your Friend

Using their Career Finder results, have each student select and research three occupations and report to the class how math will help each of those occupations. Students should focus on how math will help to do the job better, and not on which math skills are necessary for the given occupation.

12. The Number is on the Wall

Place numbers on walls around the room and ask students questions regarding occupations. Students will respond to the questions by moving around the room until they find the number that most accurately represents his or her view of the question. Provide a one through five ranking scale, where five represents Strongly Agree and one represents Strongly Disagree. For example: I would like to work as a sociologist (provide a brief description of the occupation from Choices Planner). Have each student stand below the number on the wall that represents the way they feel about each statement. Have students record their response to each statement. Then, have students generate mathematical and statistical outcomes with the class results.

"Individuals in today's workforce will make as many as 7 to 12 work transitions in their lifetime."

Geography

13. Weather or Not

Begin a discussion regarding weather patterns. Have each student examine his or her Career Finder results. Have each student research some of the occupations on their results list to determine how geographic location and weather patterns might influence and affect the ability to do each job.

14. Concentration Occupations

Have each student access his or her list of potential careers from the Career Finder results. From this list, have students determine where in the country they would find a concentration of these occupations. Are there areas of the country, or in the world, where this occupation might be in greater demand?

15. International Occupations

Have each student review his or her Career Finder results list to determine if any of the occupations could be potentially international occupations. How would the job relate to lifestyles in that area? Each student will need to analyze his or her desired lifestyle versus the expected pay and the required education for the selected occupations.

16. Urban or Rural

This activity will encourage students to examine the economic opportunities in urban settings versus rural settings. Have each student select several occupations from their Career Finder results, then ask them to determine if each occupation would be more fitting in an urban or rural setting, or both. What are the implications of each location on the occupations and opportunities?

"There are over 650 career profiles in Choices Planner"

Computers

17. Utilizing Skills to Benefit the Group

This activity will allow students to use their Choices Planner assessment results for the benefit of the school. Students will compile and analyze the Interest Profiler results for the entire school. Great care will need to be taken to ensure that test results remain confidential and unidentifiable. Have students chart the results and submit a report to the school. Student may also wish to run statistical reports and include these as part of the complete school report. As long as students' test results remain anonymous, students may also include a statistical or graphical analysis of the Work Values results as well. This might be an individual effort or a group project.

18. Computer Brochures

Have each student select an occupation from his or her Career Finder results. Each student will utilize his or her computer skills to develop a brochure for the selected occupation. Encourage creativity, text and graphics for the brochures! Quotes from people in these fields would really add to an occupational brochure. After the brochures are reviewed and graded, students may submit the brochure to the library for viewing by other students.

19. Utilize Computer Skills to Research an Occupation

This is the ultimate in a final exam for computer stills. Have each students utilize their online research tools to examine an occupation in detail. Each student will also need to utilize his or her computer skills to create a report, assemble graphs and insert graphics to enhance the report.

20. Scrapbook Generation

21. A Web Generation

Each student will select an occupation from their Career Finder results list. Each student will design and create a website for a selected occupation. Each student will need to develop a list the traits for the occupations, the working condition, Interest Profile codes for the occupation, necessary aptitudes and links to other sites for additional information. Students should focus on generating a pleasing and attractive website to promote the occupation.

22. A Powerful Point

This activity will merge Choices Planner career assessment results and PowerPoint skills. Students will create a PowerPoint presentation on one of his or her top occupations from their suggested list of careers in Choices Planner. Each student will need to research the occupation, create a PowerPoint presentation and show the presentation to the class. The whole class will benefit from information sharing on various occupations. Students will build computer skills and generate a working knowledge of the PowerPoint program while expanding knowledge of a selected occupation.

23. It is Obscure and Profound

The goal is to find the most obscure and bizarre occupation possible. Have students use online resources to find the most obscure occupation possible. Each student must present his or her occupation to the class and rally votes for the most peculiar occupation. Students will use computer skills, practice public speaking and learn more about non-traditional occupations.

"The use of the word occupations in this document is synonymous with careers."

Music

24. Beethoven or Bach?

Ask the class to create a piece of music. The group must research the needs of the public, generate the music, sell the music and track the business portions of the activity. The key is that they must utilize each of the six Holland Codes and assign appropriate tasks to each group based on their interests. Develop a list of occupations that would be necessary to complete this activity. For example, you will need musicians, marketing professionals, sales people and clerical staff. Students will learn more about the field of music, music production and related occupations.

25. Music Through the Ages

Each student will research the effects of music on his or her life. Students should be encouraged to examine their Career Finder results and determine if any selected career would involve music. When did music play an important time in their life? Do they see music involved in any career they are considering? Would they like to find a career that involves music? Encourage students to find careers that might not ordinary appear to involve music (For example, Funeral Director).

26. Historical Music

Have each student select an occupation related to music and track the occupation back as far as possible. What changes exist? How has that occupation changed through the ages? Students will learn more about the field of music, different occupations and the development of music through the ages.

27. Take Your Musical Pick

This activity will suit the creative at heart. Have each student select a piece of music and create new words for the song. The catch is that the new words must describe a selected occupation. Each student, or group of students, will need to research an occupation, select a piece of music and create new words for the piece of music that will describe the occupation, including educational requirements, working conditions and typical tasks. You may wish to have students perform their new creations for the class.

28. A Baseball Organ

Select an occupation and discuss how music effects that occupation. For example, students could describe how music would have an effect on a sportscaster: from the organ at a baseball game, to the advertisements during the broadcast, to the background music. Can they find occupations that have no musical consideration?

"There are over 6,000 post-secondary School Profiles in Choices Planner.

English

29. Top Choice

30. Dave's High School Top 10 List

In this activity, each student will generate his or her own version of David Letterman's Top 10 List. Have each student make a statement about their 10 favorite occupations. For example:

1. Agricultural Sprayer -- An absolutely necessary occupation that allows our crops to live bug free.
2. Pilot -- The airborne people that allow me to take a long vacation after working hard at my first occupation as an Agricultural Sprayer.

This should be a fun activity that allows for growth in creative writing, occupational knowledge, self-awareness and career exploration, as well as making a meaningful connection between their career assessment results and the occupations they selected.

31. English Made Simple

Have each student research an occupation that falls on his or her Career Finder results list. Students should be encouraged to conduct an informational interview with someone in his or her selected occupation or participate in a job shadowing experience when possible. At the conclusion of his or her research, each student will create a report based on the informational interview or job shadowing experience. Essays will be submitted for grading purposes.

32. Not on My List? Not a Potential Occupation?

In this activity, each student will examine his or her Interest Profiler results list to determine the highest Interest Profiler career. Now, they should find an occupation that is not on that list, but is still of interest to the student. They then write a paper describing this occupation and why it was not on their Interest Profiler's list of potential occupations. What factors might contribute to it not showing up on his or her results list? Are there aspects of the occupation that they did not consider when they thought of this occupation? What would they need to do in order to have this occupation on their list? Students will learn more about occupations, expand their awareness of potential occupations, learn more about their personal work-related preferences and enhance their self-awareness.

33. Dream a Little Career for Me

This activity brings creativity and career development together. Throughout this activity, students will be working with five career profiles from Choices Planner. Students will identify key aspects from each of their top five desired careers and eliminate the undesirable aspects of the career. Ask each student to create a new job that includes all pleasurable aspects of the selected occupations while removing the undesirable aspects. What parts of each job would they leave out and why? Why do they enjoy each set of tasks in the selected occupations? Student will be allowed the opportunity to think from an entrepreneurial point of view instead of limiting themselves to known occupations.

34. Career Journal

The career journal is an ongoing activity. During the journaling process, students will be provided with the opportunity to write about items related to career and educational planning. Students may record items they find unclear about an occupation. What have they concluded from their research? What do they need to do to complete the research on an occupation? What have they learned? They may also take time to reflect upon career and educational planning activities or make notes regarding career and educational planning activities. Students can use the Journal within their portfolios for this activity.

35. Billboard Top 20

This activity allows students to have fun while learning more about themselves and the world of work. Students rank the top 20 occupations on their Career Finder results. Students may then create a brief statement to accompany each occupation. They may wish to use a format similar to a Top 20 radio count down show.

Accountant -- This digit-based ditty tops the career list for the third week in a row due to its number-crunching tasks and sedentary working conditions. This occupation will be the thrill of the World of Work for those favoring a little number crunching throughout the day.

"Customers can access Choices Planner from anywhere they have an Internet connection."

Social Studies

36. Travel to Find the Ideal Occupation

Let your students' minds travel as we begin this activity. Have them select an airport from around the world. They then will analyze the operation of the selected airport and list all the occupations needed to run a successful international or regional airport. Student will locate the career profile in Choices Planner for at least one of the careers on their airport occupations list. Considering the different parts of the world, are airport occupations different in other places? Do the students have occupations on their list that might assist an international or regional airport? Would one of their occupations enhance the operation of the selected airport?

37. Social Issues and Change

When examining a social problem or changing world conditions, open a discussion about which occupations would be affected by the social issues your class is studying. How would each occupation be changed for the better or for the worst? Would an occupation on their Career Finder results list assist in the social change or policy change? How might these changes affect other parts of the world? How might these changes affect the history of the selected occupation?

38. It is a Current Event

This activity will allow students to relate occupations to current events. Have each student select an occupation from his or her Career Finder results list. Have each student find a news article related to one of the selected careers and tell the class about the article and how it relates to the selected occupation. Students may need to utilize Internet, television and paper resources. Does this research change or alter the student's view of that occupation?

39. Structural Design for Career Development

This is a different twist on career development. Have each student select a historical building (like the Parthenon, Egyptian Pyramids, Borabadur). How many occupations were involved in the building of this structure? What about a building today -- how would this differ? What occupations would be necessary today? How did technology change building structures and the associated occupations? Are any occupations on the student's list related to building or development?

40. Career Day or Career Night

Involve community members and parents in this activity. Have students invite community members or parents to speak at roundtable sessions during a career day or career night. Set up tables around the gym or lecture area, and allow students to rotate throughout the area viewing presentations and asking questions of participants. Did the students find anyone participating in occupations found on his or her Career Finder results list? What did they learn? You might elect to have students organize and coordinate this event, including organizing the participants, location, activities and invitations.

41. Student Career Day

This is a variation of a typical "career day." In this activity, students will research an occupation and pretend to be the expert in that field. Students may utilize an informational interview format, conduct online research or find alternative resources for research. Students must be prepared to be the expert in the occupation, as other students will approach them as the expert. Set up a "career day" format and allow students to attend presentations and ask questions of the student presenters. This activity will build career awareness, public speaking skills and research skills.

42. Will the Student See Their Shadow Today?

Select a day in which students can elect to shadow someone in the community. Job shadowing experiences provide invaluable practice, experience and knowledge. You may wish to ask students to create a report or videotape their experience to share with other students.

43. Watching for the Career

This activity should be fun and educational. Select a movie you can watch during a couple of class periods. Throughout the movie, students should watch for different careers and generate a list of those careers. As an option, you could offer a prize or extra credit to the student that finds the most occupations throughout the movie. It may be beneficial to discuss any surprises or thoughts generated from the activity.

44. Trial by a Jury of Your Peers

Select an occupation to debate (lawyer is always a hot topic of conversation). Organize the class according to witnesses, prosecutors, defenders and jurors. The class will need to elect a judge. Alternatively, you may appoint yourself as the judge. Have students present the opening argument and evidence. Students will need to call witnesses, attorneys will need to prepare witnesses, and the Court will need to select the jury (the remaining class participants might represent the pool of jurors). This activity will teach students about legal proceedings, as well as increase their awareness of a selected occupation.

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Entrepreneurial and Business Classes

45. Make it Your Business

46. Building Upon Your Interests

47. Sell Your Occupation

48. Commercialize Your Career

"The use of the word occupations in this document is synonymous with careers."

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