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Teacher's Desk
Choosing a career: activity requirements
Lesson description
The “Choosing a career” activity helps students to learn more about various occupations that may interest them. This activity guides the student through the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH), online at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/, to learn more about necessary skills, job outlook, pay, and much more.
Activity objective
Students will accomplish the following:
- Learn more about a particular occupation including
- required education and training
- the pay for that occupation
- necessary skills
- job outlook
- much more!
- Learn how to navigate the BLS website to locate career information.
BLS topics covered
- Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH)
- Employment Projections (EP)
- Occupational Employment Statistics (OES)
Grade level
Secondary level
Time to complete
Approximately 2 hours
Materials
Students will need
- an online or printed version of the “Choosing a career” activity
- pencil and paper
- access to BLS.gov and the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH)
Instructions
Share the “Choosing a career” activity document with the students. Have them review the questions presented in the “Activity” section and select an occupation to research. Ask the students to browse the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) to research the questions and report their responses either in written or electronic format.
Activity assessment
At the conclusion of the activity, students should be able to
- express information about careers that interest them, including the pay, job outlook, necessary skills, etc.
- locate and navigate the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) when looking for career information.
Other resources
You may visit the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH) https://www.bls.gov/ooh to browse the available profiles and information. The Teacher’s Guide https://www.bls.gov/ooh/about/teachers-guide.htm lists resources to help you develop a career curriculum for your classrooms. For more classroom materials, visit the Council for Economics Education http://www.councilforeconed.org/ and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis https://www.stlouisfed.org/education/.
If you have any questions about this K-12 activity, or would like to provide feedback, please contact the BLS Division of Information and Marketing Services at 202-691-5200, or email us at k12@bls.gov.
Last Modified Date: June 21, 2018
