Lesson Plan 02: Where are the Jobs?

Title of the Lesson: Where are the Jobs?: Understanding Labor Market data
Intended Grade Level: Middle School (6th-8th grade)
Standards this lesson corresponds to: CCSS.LA.6.W.6.7,
Student Learning Objectives:

Analyze and interpret labor market data

Understand the correlation between the amount of education/preparation needed for

careers and average salaries

Materials Needed:

An computer or tablet device with an Internet connection for each student or small group

Pencils or pens and copies of the attached worksheet for writing and taking notes

Description of What Students Will Do:

To introduce this lesson play the following Career Girls video clip of a role model talking
about the importance of going to college: Engineer Role Model on the Importance of Going to
College.

Discuss this clip and what students think about going to college. Is it as important as this
role model says?
The Impact of Education on Opportunities & Earning Potential:
Write the education levels from the first column in the table below on the board and have

students guess what the average yearly salary is for each of the educational levels. Note their
guesses and then add the correct amounts next to each one.
National Earnings of the US Workforce by Educational Attainment (in 2009 dollars)
Educational Level

Average Yearly
Earnings

Median Lifetime
Earnings

High school dropout

$20,480

$973,000

Average
Unemployment
Rates (2012)
12.4%

High school graduate

$29,202

$1,304,000

8.3%

Some college, no degree

$34,624

$1,547,000

7.7%

Associates Degree

$42,088

$1,727,000

6.2%

Bachelors Degree

$54,300

$2,268,000

4.5%

Masters Degree

$76,000

$2,671,000

3.5%

Doctoral Degree

$3,252,000

2.5%

Professional Degree

$3,648,000

2.1%

Sources: http://www.nvcc.edu/about-nova/directories--offices/administrativeoffices/oir/bulletins/docs/3812learningsworkforceeduresearchbrief.pdf. The College Payoff: Education, Occupations, Lifetime Earnings. 2011. By Anthony P.
Carnevale, Stephen J. Rose and Ban Cheah. The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

Break students into groups and assign each group one of the education categories. Have
the group calculate what the lifetime earnings would be based on the average yearly salaries.
Students can use one of the online lifetime earnings calculators such as CalcXML.com. Make
sure that each group uses the same starting age and retirement age and factors the same amount
for annual salary increases (usually 2 or 3%). Have them add the lifetime earnings figures to the
board.
Finally, have students guess or research the average unemployment rate for each of these
education levels. This data can be found on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Website.
Discussion topics:

What other factors influence yearly earnings besides education level?

Why is the unemployment rate higher for high school dropouts?

Based on these statistics does the cost of a college degree seem worthwhile?

Labor Market Trends

Now have students look at
some of the labor department data
on jobs that are experiencing high
growth. Have them go online to
the Occupational Outlook
Handbook.

Either alone or working in pairs,

have students select Fastest
Growing (Projected) from the
main screen and review the list of
jobs. Students should select 3 high
growth jobs that look interesting from these lists and fill out the attached the worksheet.
Have students also look up the growth data for their top 3 Dream Jobs. If they are
unsure about careers that interest them they can also search for the top 10 dream job lists.
To drill down further students will look at employment trends for their state. Have them
access http://cew.georgetown.edu/recovery2020/states/ and select their state on the map.

Have students fill out the next section of the worksheet using this data.
Questions for class discussion:

Why might it be a good idea to consider careers with a good occupational

outlook?

If a career has a good occupational outlook does that mean that it will be easy to
find a job?

Is a high salary important for thinking about a career? What are other aspects of a
career that should be considered?

Jobs of the Future

Given the rapid pace of change brought about by technology, it is difficult to predict the
type of new careers which may emerge in the future. Some same that as many as 65% of the
jobs of the future do not exist today. Have students research what futurists say about the type of
jobs that may exist in the future. Some recent resources to use could include:

6 High-Paying Jobs of the Future (Forbes)

20 Jobs of the Future (InnovationExcellence.com)

55 Jobs of the Future (Futurisspeaker.com)

Students should select one of these future careers to write about in the attached worksheet.

Final Report
For the final activity students should pick one of the high growth or future careers that
interest them and create an in-depth multimedia presentation about this career, what the work
entails, educational requirements, and future prospects. Students can include video clips of
Career Girls role models talking about this career in their presentation or other video clips from
the web.
Prezi is a great platform for creating multimedia presentations. Video clips can be
embedded directly in the presentation as well as graphs, charts and other graphics.

Assessment Strategy:
Students will complete the attached worksheet and produce a final multimedia
presentation about one of the selected careers. A sample rubric for grading the presentation is

attached.

Where the Jobs Are Worksheet

Careers with High Growth
Rate

Growth
Rate (%)

1.

2.

3.

Top 3 Dream Jobs

Growth
Rate (%)

1.

2.

3.

Average
yearly salary

Education
required

Average
yearly salary

Education
required

Which industries & occupations are experiencing the highest growth

rate in your state?
Occupations with High
Growth rate

Growth
Rate (%)

1.

2.

3.

# of new jobs

Education level
with most new
jobs

What is a potential job of the future that sounds interesting to

you? What would someone in that job do?

GRADING RUBRIC: Multimedia Presentation

4

Excellent

Very Good

Fair

Poor

Accuracy

All content
throughout the
presentation is
accurate. There
are no factual
errors.
Presentation has
no misspellings
or grammatical
errors.

The content is
generally
accurate, but one
piece of
information is
clearly flawed or
inaccurate.
Presentation has
1-2 grammatical
errors and
misspellings.

Content is
typically
confusing or
contains more
than one factual
error.

Grammar and
Spelling

Use of
graphics and
multimedia

All graphics are

attractive and
support the
theme/content of
the presentation.

Most of the
content is
accurate but
there is one piece
of information
that might be
inaccurate.
Presentation has
1-2 misspellings,
but no
grammatical
errors.
A few graphics
are not attractive
but all support
the
theme/content of
the presentation.

Organization
& structure

Information is
organized in a
clear, logical
way. It is easy to
anticipate the
flow of material..

Most information
is organized in a
clear, logical
way. One slide of
piece of
information
seems out of
place.

Some
information is
logically
sequenced. An
occasional slide
or piece of
information
seems out of
place.

Criteria

A few graphics
do not seem to
support the
theme/content of
the presentation.

Presentation has
more than 2
grammatical
and/or spelling
errors.
Graphics are
unattractive
AND detract
from the content
of the
presentation.
There is no clear
plan for the
organization of
information.