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STEM: Careers of the Future

Lesson Plan

STEM: Careers of the Future

Grade Levels

10th Grade, 6th Grade, 7th Grade, 8th Grade, 9th Grade

Course, Subject

Career Awareness & Preparation
Related Academic Standards
6.5.5.B 6.5.5.B
Differentiate the requirements for different careers and occupations.
13.1.5.A 13.1.5.A
Describe the impact of individual interests and abilities on career choices.
13.1.5.F 13.1.5.F
Investigate people’s rationale for making career choices.
13.1.5.H 13.1.5.H
Connect personal interests and abilities and academic strengths to personal career options.
13.1.8.A 13.1.8.A
Relate careers to individual interests, abilities, and aptitudes.
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  • Big Ideas
    Career choice and preparation are lifelong processes based on many influences and using many strategies.
    Change impacts career options and choices.
    Individuals and entities endeavor to obtain goods and services and to accumulate wealth.
    Interests, aptitudes, and abilities are unique for each individual and play a key role in career choice.
    There is a definitive relationship between education and career planning and choice.
  • Concepts
    Career plan maintenance.
    Changes in education, incentives, technology, and capital investment alter productivity.
    Changes that impact traditional and non traditional careers over time.
    Components of a career plan.
    Definition and importance of a career plan.
    Economic factors impact employment opportunities.
    Effect of school subjects, extracurricular activities and community experiences on career preparation.
    Factors that impact career choices.
    Factors that support career selection.
    Impact of change on career choices.
    Influence of personal interests and aptitudes on career choice.
    Post secondary career preparation opportunities.
    Relationship between educational achievement and career success.
    Relationship of educational plans to the career choice process.
    School-based opportunities for career awareness/preparation.
    The accumulation of resources, whether abundant or not, is wealth.
    The accumulation of resources, whether abundant or not, is wealth. Individuals, regional entities and nation-states produce wealth to satisfy human needs and wants.
    The relationship of career interests to career choice.
    Traditional and nontraditional occupations.
    Types of career training programs available for career preparation.
    Types of educational and training opportunities that are available to prepare for careers.
    Varied sources of career information.
    Varities of traditional and nontraditional careers.
  • Competencies
    Assess factors that impact an individual and entities’ standards of living.
    Describe the influences that impact personal career choices.
    Locate, evaluate, and interpret career information.
    Make a list of the types of factors that influenced career choices by asking individuals at home who are in the workplace.
    Match some personal interests and abilities to given career choices.

Rationale

There is push for identifying and proposing STEM Careers (Science Technology Engineering and Math) especially as it relates to girls. The purpose of this lesson is to identify what are STEM Careers, and research those STEM Careers focusing on career activities, skills needed, wages, projected growth, and job openings in the future. Finally the student identifies if they would be interested in holding that career.

Vocabulary

STEM Career: A highly valued career that falls in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math.  Typically the percentage of women who enter this career cluster is signficantly lower than men.

Median Wages: The average wages after surveying several individual group members.

Projected Growth:  Will there be many job openings in the future, or only a few job openings.

Job Openings:  The number of jobs that are available for people to get.

Objectives

1.  Students will be able to identify five careers that fall under the Career Cluster of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

2.  Students will be able to identify a resource where they can find information for careers that fall under Science Technology, Education, and Math.

3. Students will identify specific characteristics of each career identified such as skills needed, education needed, wages, projected growth, and number of jobs available.  

4.  Using the information gathered above, students will evaluate whether the career reserached is a "good fit" for them, their career goals, and their aspirtions.

Lesson Essential Question(s)

1.  What does STEM stand for?

2.  Where can I find examples of careers in the STEM Cluster?

3.  What do careers in the STEM Cluster do?

4.  Can I make a decent wage working in the STEM Cluster?

5.  What kind of skills would I need to work in the STEM Cluster?

6.  Will there be a large number of job openings in the future in STEM?

Duration

50 Minutes

Materials

http://www.onetonline.org/find/career?c=15

STEM Research.pdf

Suggested Instructional Strategies

W:  The teacher will introduce the lesson by asking "what do Archaelologists, Aerospace Engineers, and Psychologists have in common?"  "They are all careers that fall under STEM... Science Technology, Engineering and Math."  The teacher can then discuss the need for people to go into STEM careers, how there are typically more men than women in STEM Careers, and that STEM careers are a good cluster to find jobs in.
H:  The students will be hooked as they do individual research about a career of their choosing that falls under the STEM Cluster.  
E:  The students will select a career, identify what services the career does, and the things that are important to them such as salary, job openings, and skills that might be needed.  The students should compare the information that they find to their own goals.
R:  The students will reflect on the information they find and relate it to themselves and see if it matches with anything that they are interested as potential careers.
E:  They will display understanding by completing the forms and showing the information that they have researched.
T:  The teacher should move about the room questioning for understanding, explaining what certain terminology might mean, and looking for struggling students.  If a student is struggling with finding the information, the teacher can show them where to locate it on Onet to copy and if it is still a struggle to match them with a peer.
O:  The students will work independently as they go through the forms looking for the information required for each of the careers they are researching.

Instructional Procedures

1.  The teacher will provide a brief introduction to S.T.E.M. including what it is, careers that fall under the cluster, potential job openings, and the significant difference between the number of men and women who work in the field.

2.  The teacher will lead the students to the S.T.E.M. portion of the ONet website that lists careers that fall under the S.T.E.M. unbrella.

3.  The teacher will hand out 5 copies of the handout and ask the students to research 5 potential careers of interest that fall under S.T.E.M. and answer whether these careers spark a potential interest with the student.

4.  Once completed the teacher will collect the forms and review the process, asking which careers sparked potenial interest with a student, what did the career do, are there job openings in the future, and can one make a good living doing that career.

Formative Assessment

The teacher will review the student performance and understanding by the closing activity and asking about the reserach and also the review of the forms with the collected information on them.

Related Materials & Resources

http://www.onetonline.org/find/career?c=15

STEM Research.pdf

Author

Michael Simmons General McLane School District James W. Parker Middle School

Date Published

May 22, 2013
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