How to Use National Holidays for Career Exploration
It’s almost Labor Day!
Career exploration – which is all about helping kids connect-the-dots between their school work, their talents and interests and getting a job someday – can be a creative, easy activity all year long.
(And it shouldn’t just take place in the classroom. Everyone can be a career mentor. We’ve got the tools to prove it.)
But I digress. Back to the calendar.
Consider this: there are many people in the world who love holidays and observances of every kind.
I searched online and readily found lots of them. They range from the seemingly silly -June is Iced Tea Month- to the serious, Martin Luther King Day, for example.
I wondered who the heck would celebrate Iced Tea so I noodled around.
Low and behold, investigating Iced Tea Month turned out to be pretty interesting. It became a springboard for learning about the different kinds of teas and tea leaf growers around the world as well as the people who come up with new recipes for hot, bottled, iced and spiked teas.
I read that there is a lot of research that goes into uncovering the health and nutritional benefits of different types of tea as well as how it can be used in cooking—as a rub, a marinade or for steaming. (I didn’t know that.) It can also be used as a beauty aid.
There are even schools that prepare professionals for relocation to Great Britain and Asian countries where tea services are a large part of the culture — so no one commits embarrassing faux pas on the job.
Who knew? I found all this out by looking at observances and picking one to investigate.
You could keep connecting-the-dots: What other types of jobs or businesses are connected to the tea and beverage industry? Who hires these people? I have Lipton, Nestle and Wild Organics as brand names on the packages of teas in my cupboard.
What are these companies all about? Are they good employers? Who do they hire? What training or degrees are commonly required to work for them?
Dot. Dot. Dot. Wasn’t that easy?
Labor Day is coming up. You know there is a ton of interesting information related to it.
So go do a little labor.
It will help you get career wise!
CareerWise™ products are based on the premise that opening kids’ eyes to all the fascinating jobs there are in the world is the first step to motivating them to stay in school so they can grow up and get a job someday. Visit www.GetCareerWise.com for our award-winning workbook –with Free Teaching Guide- and www.GetCareerWise.com/blog4 for more articles. (Reprints are ok, but please acknowledge us.) We will be launching a wonderful new product on Sept 1, so stay tuned.
Career Quiz for Kids: What is stereoscopy?
I’ll give you a hint.
Did you like ‘Avatar’ or ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’? Weren’t they cool in 3-D?
Then look into stereoscopy as a career option. What a hot technology to master!
Where and how it is used is pretty interesting. And the best part is, there are zillions of ways it can evolve to enhance how we view things in all sorts of industries and mediums. It’s a field waiting to explode with opportunity!
If the future of stereoscopy excites the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and James Cameron, I think other creative spirits should take a multi-dimensional look at it too!
It would be very careerwise.
CareerWise™ products are based on the premise that opening kids’ eyes to all the fascinating jobs there are in the world is the first step to motivating them to stay in school so they can grow up and get a job someday. Visit www.GetCareerWise.com for our award-winning workbook –with Free Teaching Guide- and www.GetCareerWise.com/blog4 for more articles. (Reprints are ok, but please acknowledge us.) We will be launching a wonderful new product later this month, so stay tuned!
Career Quiz for Kids: What professionals are involved in the financial crisis?
Ok, you can read a little tongue-in-cheek attitude into the timing of this question.
It sure seems like there are a lot of different ‘experts’ involved in what’s going on in the financial world, doesn’t it?
Everyone is weighing in with opinions and predictions about how to solve our fiscal problems. (Bonus points if you know what ‘fiscal’ means!)
I know kids don’t miss a thing, so let’s put all this up-and-down news to good use.
How many job titles can you list that are associated with the financial decisions, activities and communications that are surrounding us all right now?
I’ll get you started:
- President
- Congressman/Congresswoman
- Senators
- Secretary of the Treasury
- Business News Analyst
- Statistician
- Financial Planners
- Roller Coaster Ride Operator (keep your sense of humor!)
I think you will end up with a long list -there are a lot of very interesting jobs involved in analyzing, facilitating, planning, fixing and reporting activities in this huge vital arena.
Next, think about what new jobs, products or services could be created to avoid these kinds of problems or make the handling of them more efficient in the future.
Any ideas?
Now, you’re really getting careerwise!
CareerWise is the proud publisher of the award winning Grow Up. Get a Job™. Career Exploration workbook. (with Free Teaching Guide). Stay tuned for another creative career exploration & preparation resource coming soon! www.GetCareerWise.com
Career Quiz for Kids: What are the 16 career clusters?
First off, what is a career cluster? In the world of career exploration, they are good to know. So find out what they are by visiting the U.S. Departments of Education or the U.S. Department of Labor web sites to find out.
Next, read through the 16 clusters carefully. Did you ever think about jobs being categorized like that? It’s interesting, isn’t it?
Do any career clusters interest you more than others?
Are you curious about what jobs are possible in each cluster?
Are you feeling like a detective on the trail of some very interesting information that could affect your educational and career choices?
Yes? Then congratulations! You are becoming careerwise!
To find out about our creative, highly relevant and award-winning workbook filled with career exploration activities, information and exercises, visit www.GetCareerWise.com. It comes with a free teaching guide. 
And stay tuned: we have a fabulous new product launching this month that you are going to love!
Career Task for Kids: Ask an adult, what influenced your career choice?
There was an interesting segment on National Public Radio this week. It was about what things, people, places, or events influenced various professionals to make the career choices they did.
The interview I heard was with a woman who combined her love of the sciences and her hobby – photography – to choose Tissue Engineering as a career. A big influence was the day she saw beautiful, very colorful photos of magnified cells from the human body in an art book. It prompted her to investigate merging her two interests. She sounded very glad she did.
I had to look up Tissue Engineering when I got home; I was motivated by the woman’s obvious passion for her job. The National Institute of Health provides this general description of the field on their website.
Tissue engineering / regenerative medicine is an emerging multidisciplinary field involving biology, medicine, and engineering that is likely to revolutionize the ways we improve the health and quality of life for millions of people worldwide by restoring, maintaining, or enhancing tissue and organ function.
The field is much more interesting, expansive and highly relevant than this short description implies. And it sounds like one that could offer very rewarding and exciting opportunities in the future.
Kudos to the Tissue Engineer for successfully merging her two passions in life. And for sharing how she did it.
Go ask an adult you know what influenced his or her career choices. Search for career-related interviews with professionals from all walks of life to discover what got them on a successful career path.
These real-life stories are fascinating and will open your eyes to some amazing choices you have in front of you. It’s all part of getting careerwise!
Visit www.GetCareerWise.com or www.GetCareerWise.com/blog4 for more eye-opening ideas.
