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Career Research Projects for High School Students

Immersive projects are a great teaching tool to get students excited about a potential career path.

As a teacher or homeschooler of high school students, you know the importance of in-depth, hands-on instruction. The more your students see how to apply their career planning and exploration skills, the better. Check out these career research projects for high school students that you can use in your classroom immediately! You can head to our careers curriculum center for lesson plans and more materials you can use as well.

Career Research Projects – Essays and Written Products

Sometimes, the best approach is the simplest. These projects require students to research and type up essays or written reports.

• Career Research and Readiness Project: In this project , students take a personality assessment to see what kinds of careers they may enjoy. They research the job application and interview process, narrow their search to a few career choices, and then set SMART goals to help them achieve their dreams. 
• Career Research Project Paper: Students will like this project’s   simple, straightforward instructions and layout. The components are broken into manageable chunks, letting your high schoolers tackle the project in parts. By the end, they will produce a well-researched essay highlighting their career. 
• 3-Career Research Report: In this project , students choose three careers to focus on and create a written report. They learn MLA documentation, write business letters to organizations, take notes, and go through the formal writing process. This project has everything your students need to develop their career research reports with a rubric, parent letter, works cited page instructions, and more.
• STEM Careers Research Poster and Brochure: Students conduct comprehensive research in this project , using what they learn to create several items showing their knowledge. They research and learn about a specific career and make a posterboard presentation. Then they can create a brochure, present their findings to the class, and answer any questions that classmates and others may ask.
• Job Research Project: In this project , students first do research on any career they want. They must look up the various requirements, necessary skills, salary, and other details about the profession. They end with a thorough essay about their career, hopefully armed with the knowledge to help them in the future. The project is customizable to adapt to multiple grades, so your high school students will all benefit from the project. 

Career Research Projects – Digital Presentations

Fusing technology and research, these projects allow kids to show their knowledge through technology. Students create digital presentations and share them with the class using PowerPoint, Google Slides, and other formats.

• Career Research Project: This project works with many grades, and teachers can customize it to fit their students’ levels. They use PowerPoint to make a comprehensive slide show to demonstrate their knowledge. It breaks down career research into ten slides (you can add more as needed), and students will have a solid understanding of their future career path by the end of the assignment. 
• Career Presentation Project: In this project , high schoolers need to research career clusters, narrow their choices down to only one profession, and find many details about it. They look up median salary, entry-level pay, education requirements, required skills, and any additional benefits or perks that would attract potential applicants. They put all this information into a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation.
• Career and College Exploration Project: This project is broken down into clear and detailed descriptions for each slide of the presentation. It differs from other projects on the list because it weaves college research into the assignment, showing students the connection between education and careers. With 22 slides to complete, students will have an in-depth understanding of their chosen careers and how to navigate school and plan for future success.
• Career Exploration Project: This project is unique as it takes a realistic approach to career exploration, requiring students to find the pros and cons of three potential careers. They see that every job has perks and drawbacks, and part of pursuing a specific one comes down to their personal preference. The project includes a detailed outline, so students know precisely what to research and have on each slide of their digital presentation. Presenting their findings is a significant part of their grade, which helps strengthen their accountability, quality of work, and public speaking skills.
• Life Skills Career Research Project: This project is an excellent blend of hands-on production and digital skill-building, letting students show their findings in multiple formats. They research a career, finding things like education/training requirements, job responsibilities, drawbacks, benefits, opportunities for advancement, specific places of employment, and salaries. Students need to create a functional resume and attach it to the project. They use Google Drive to design poster components and can submit the project digitally or on a poster board.

Amber Robertson

Amber Robertson is the founder of Quill and Fox. A creative writing studio that helps people find their voice and share their stories. Amber is also a published author, with her first book slated for release in 2020. She loves spending time with her family and friends, reading, writing, and traveling. When Amber was younger, she loved to write short stories and plays. But somewhere along the way, she lost touch with her creativity. It wasn’t until she became a mom that she realized how important it was to share her stories—both the good and the bad—with the people she loves most. That’s when Quill and Fox was born. Amber is passionate about helping others find their voice and share their stories. She believes that every person has a story worth telling, and it’s her mission to help them tell it in a way that is authentic and true to themselves

Crafting an Informative Career Research Paper

Table of Contents

Introduction

A career research paper is an extensive examination of a profession you aim to pursue. Unlike typical papers, this type of essay requires you to delve into your personality and conduct thorough research to determine your compatibility with your chosen career. In this article, we will guide you through the process of writing a career research paper and provide valuable tips for creating your career outline.

Career Research Paper Template

A career research paper typically consists of three main sections:

1. Introduction

The introduction acts as a spotlight on your interests and personality, laying the foundation for the rest of your paper.

The body section highlights essential information about the profession you have identified. It covers the responsibilities associated with the role, the educational requirements for entering the field, the average salary, and the employment outlook.

3. Conclusion

The conclusion wraps up your findings and presents your overall assessment. For example, you can discuss whether or not the career choice is suitable for you based on your research.

A well-crafted career research paper should:

• Thoroughly research your career goals
• Describe your interests accurately
• Focus on a single career path
• Analyze various aspects of the chosen profession
• Compare the advantages and disadvantages of pursuing the career

How to Write a Career Research Paper

To create an exceptional research paper, follow these steps:

1. Select a Career

The first step is to choose a career that genuinely appeals to you. This initial selection will provide the motivation you need to carefully analyze the profession and make informed conclusions.

2. Research

Engage with professionals in your desired field and explore various sources to gather information on education requirements, salary expectations, responsibilities, and employment prospects. Speaking to individuals in the industry can provide you with insights into the day-to-day operations, enabling you to assess how compatible the career is with your personality.

3. Prewriting

After collecting the necessary data, it’s recommended that you create an outline to organize your thoughts and data. This outline will help you assess the completeness of your paper and identify areas that require further thought and analysis.

4. Drafting and Revision

Using your outline as a guide, draft your research paper, ensuring to address any grammatical and structural issues. Seek feedback from peers and experts during the revision phase, as they can offer valuable insights and identify areas for improvement that you may have overlooked.

How to Start a Career Research Paper

Starting a research paper can be challenging, especially if you’re unsure how to begin. Here are some approaches you can take:

Choose a career that deeply resonates with you and investigate what it takes to build a successful path in that field. You can start by describing the specific aspects of the job that particularly attract you and explaining why these aspects hold significance for you.

2. Analyze Your Personality Traits

Another approach is to highlight your personality traits and later utilize them to evaluate the suitability of a career for your needs. Focus only on the traits relevant to the chosen profession.

3. Highlight Your Strengths and Weaknesses

To start your career research paper, emphasize your strengths and weaknesses. This approach sets the stage for discussing how these attributes manifest in your career choice and serves as a criterion for determining the relevance of a particular profession. It’s advisable to only include traits that will significantly impact your performance in the field under investigation.

Tips for Writing a Career Path Research Paper

Consider these valuable tips while crafting your career research paper:

Opt for a career that genuinely captivates your interest, even if it’s not a popular choice. This allows for in-depth research and enables you to present a compelling argument for or against a specific profession.

Seek guidance from experts in the field to gain a clear understanding of the daily tasks involved in the profession and to conduct a thorough analysis of its pros and cons.

Utilize online personality tests to gain insights into the traits that make you suitable or unsuitable for a particular career.

Remember, a career research paper requires both expertise and trustworthiness. Conduct diligent research, analyze your findings critically, and present your insights coherently. Good luck with your writing journey!

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Project Career Research: how to set yourself up for success in choosing a new career

July 20, 2020

Launching a new career can be an exhilarating process, but also a complicated one. One of the most important steps is the first one—choosing which career to pursue. Whether you’re a college student getting ready to join the workforce for the first time, a mid-career professional looking to make a career switch, or someone returning to the workforce after time away, the challenge is the same—how do you know which career to pursue, and how do you get started?

This article is designed to help you explore potential careers in an analytical way. You’ll learn how to choose the career that’s right for you, and determine exactly what’s required to land your first job in your new chosen field. You’ll do this with a process called Project Career Research .

Project Career Research Overview

In Project Career Research you’ll speak with five professionals working in the career you’re exploring. This will help you develop a well-rounded overview of the field, and a plan for approaching different companies in your job search. 

The goal of Project Career Research is to answer three big questions.

Question #1: What is it really like to work as a [job title]?  

A particular career might sound exciting when you see it featured in a press article, or when you read the job description, or when you see the salaries highlighted on a hiring site. But if you’re going to actually work in the field, you need to understand the day-to-day realities of the role. Conversations with industry professionals can tell you what articles and career sites can’t—what it’s really like to have that job. 

What percentage of time do you spend in meetings, focusing on your own projects, writing emails, planning, etc? Who are the people you work with the most, and how do you interact with them? What skills and personality traits are required for success? What time of day do you usually eat lunch? What’s your stress level? Do you talk to lots of people every day, or are you on your own all the time? Do you collaborate often, or very rarely? How much freedom do you get to decide which projects you work on? How do promotions happen? 

These “real life” concerns can make the difference between loving a job, and just going through the motions. Talking with someone who is already in the field is a great way to understand the actual reality of life as a data scientist, a marketer, a social worker, or whatever role it is you choose to pursue.

Question #2: What skills do you actually need to succeed in this job?

Job descriptions can be very helpful, but they can also be very overwhelming. It’s unfortunately all too common for people to abandon pursuing a particular role, because they look at the long list of requirements in the description, and conclude they’re not qualified. The truth is, these sections are often just laundry lists of every single thing a hiring manager might wish to see in a candidate. They don’t necessarily reflect what’s actually required to succeed. Talking with people working in the field is an excellent way to learn what really does and doesn’t matter.

Questions #3: What do you need to land that job? 

There is a difference between being able to do the job, and being able to get the job. As an applicant, it’s your responsibility to prove that you’re qualified. So, it’s important to know what hiring managers are looking for from a candidate. Being credentialed for a particular skill can be very beneficial for some jobs, but not matter at all for others. Some jobs require that you have a portfolio of pre-existing work to show, while other jobs will ask you to complete a new task during your interview, and prioritize this above your portfolio. Some roles require very specific technical skills, while for others the ability to learn quickly and soft skills are much more important. Before you fully commit your time and energy to your job search, make sure you know exactly what it will take to get the job, so you’re ready when the opportunities come.

At this point, you may be wondering why you have to speak to real people—can’t this all be researched online? While there are many great online resources available, there is no substitute for the real insights and opinions that emerge in direct conversation with industry professionals. Take this step, and you’ll enter your job search well-prepared, and with confidence. Avoid it, and you risk everything from resume missteps and inadequate interview preparation to spending money on the wrong classes or training programs. As an added bonus, when you make contact with industry professionals, you’re expanding your network in your future field, which will be especially helpful once you begin the actual job search process.

How to find people to speak with

Your existing connections . An important first step is to consider your own existing network. This could be your LinkedIn network, other professional circles, or people in your shared community spaces—parent groups, civic groups, volunteer organizations, sports teams, and more. Is there someone you know who’s already in the field? Before you became interested in, say, mobile development as a possible career, you might not have consciously registered the fact that you actually already know a mobile developer! Auditing your own network is a great way to quickly discover people with whom you might be able to schedule an informational interview.

Professional groups. Search LinkedIn, Facebook, and Meetup for groups connecting professionals in your target field and reach out to individuals within those groups. Generally, you’ll find that people who are proactive enough to join professional groups are also the kinds of people who enjoy talking about their careers, and are eager to share their knowledge and their experience.

Here’s a task for you. Search professionals on LinkedIn by your target job title, and your geographic location. Review 100 profiles, and from there, choose 20 who feel most relevant to your career objectives. Reach out to all using the template below. If they respond, follow up right away with a thank-you note, and reiterate your interest in a conversation.

LinkedIn outreach template:

Hi <name>, I discovered your profile while researching digital marketing. Your experience at <company> is very interesting and I’d appreciate an opportunity to ask you a few questions, as I am exploring a career change from office management. Thank you in advance for connecting with me!

Tip #1: Make scheduling easy for the other person by suggesting a specific time to speak, and offer to work around their calendar.

Tip #2 : If they don’t reply, don’t take it personally. Just move on with your list.

Tip #3 : On LinkedIn you can only access profiles of people who are in your network (i.e.,  your 1st-degree, 2nd-degree, and 3rd-degree connections), as well as fellow members of your LinkedIn groups. You can expand your network by adding more 1st-degree connections and joining groups.

Preparing for your conversations

To make the most out of each conversation while being respectful of everyone’s time, do your research in advance, so you can ask valuable questions that only they can answer for you (as opposed to those you can get answers to through an online search). Not only does this help ensure a productive conversation, it demonstrates your respect and appreciation for the other person’s experience, and their generosity in taking the time to meet with you

I know you transitioned from teaching high school to a role as an instructional designer, and I’m trying to do the same. But also noticed that most people in similar roles tend to have formal training in instructional design. How were you able to get recruiters to notice you?

There are many ways to do research but you should always include:

• LinkedIn – review profiles of the person you are speaking with (and potentially their colleagues) to understand their backgrounds and experiences.
• Website of the company the person works for, to get a sense of everything from product catalogues to company culture.
• Industry associations and organizations – staying current with industry trends demonstrates your active engagement with your chosen field and its community, and helps to ensure your career questions are specific and relevant.

Tailoring your questions to be specific to each individual is essential, but it’s also important to prepare a set of core questions you can ask in every interview, in order to gather baseline information. For example:

• Can you describe a day in the life of a [role]?
• What are the on-the-job skills required to be successful in this role?
• Are there similar roles I should look into as well?
• How does someone with my background land a first job in the field?

During and after each conversation

Set the context for the meeting. Begin with an overview of why you reached out and what you are hoping to learn from the conversation. This enables the other person to focus on what’s relevant and will make them feel comfortable, as they’ll understand the goals. Remember: as the one who initiated the conversation, it’s your responsibility to establish both the tone and agenda. 

Introduce yourself. To ensure a productive conversation, it’s important that they understand who you are—this helps to establish context for your questions. Spend a couple of minutes in the beginning explaining why you reached out and what your goals are. Remember that while you are there to learn, this person might be able to connect you to a professional opportunity at some point. Be prepared to speak about your skills, accomplishments, and personal qualities that can bring value to an organization. You might not know how your experience transfers onto this new role but you should demonstrate passion and confidence that you can learn and grow quickly. Keep it short and focused.

Let them speak. Since you are there to learn, the primary focus of the conversation should be on the other person. Some people might be more talkative, while others may need more input from you in order to engage. Ideally, they should be speaking for 50% to 80% of the conversation. Don’t be afraid of short pauses, and be respectful and patient if they need time to gather their thoughts. 

Send a thank-you email. You have created a valuable connection, so stay in touch! A thank-you email is a great way to strengthen the connection by reiterating your appreciation for their time and following up on any action items that came out of the discussion. Also, be sure to think through ways you might return the favor, and, as appropriate, share resources, connections, or thoughts they might find valuable.

Wrapping up your project

Now that you have completed five conversations with professionals working in your target career, it’s time to go back to your main three questions and provide answers based on what you’ve learned.

Upon completing that step, you should have a clear sense of whether your target career is actually the one that you want to pursue. You should know if there are opportunities in your area, and you should have a good sense of what skills are required for the role. 

If all that is in place, then you’re ready to proceed!

Your next steps will involve addressing gaps related to job requirements (skills, credentials, degrees, experience) and building an optimal resume. We’ll cover those topics in future posts. Until then, good luck choosing a great career path, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on Coursera when you need to learn new skills!

About the author: Vera Fishman

Vera Fishman a Career Services Program Manager at Coursera and a career coach. Over the past 5+ years she coached hundreds of professionals from major Silicon Valley companies and ran workshops on every step of the job search process at Lee Hecht Harrison (resume writing, career discovery, interviewing – you name it!) and created an innovative job search curriculum at Udacity. Prior to becoming a coach Vera had a whole different career in marketing, and a shorter one in non-profit community management – so she is no stranger to career-changing herself.  A native of Saint Petersburg, Russia, Vera has spent her adult life in Silicon Valley, where she feels most at home and comfortable – aside from not liking to have to drive everywhere.

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ENG 101 - Informative Career Research (Buzzard)

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Getting started.

• Writing Fundamentals from Writer's Reference Center This has links to articles on writing any document, paraphrasing, quotations, writing a thesis statement, outline, body paragraphs, conclusion, and writing about themes, characters, form, symbols, etc.
• Choosing a Research Topic and Creating a Thesis This guide from the SCC Library provides students information on how to choose a research topic for an assignment including what makes a good research topic, concept mapping, background research, and narrowing a topic and most importantly information about creating a thesis.
• Choosing a Topic (Tutorial) This SCC Library tutorial will walk you through how to choose an appropriate topic for a research assignment and help you turn your research topic into a thesis statement.

MLA Formatting for Papers

If you're using APA Format for your paper - see our APA Guide

• Creating and Formatting MLA Paper This guide from SCC Library provides you instructions in MS Word for formatting a paper correctly including proper font and header.
• Formatting Your Works Cited Page-MLA This guide from SCC Library provides you instructions in MS Word for formatting works cited page correctly including proper font and hanging in-dent.
• Sample Paper in MLA Format Don't forget to format your paper in MLA format. This sample paper will show you how to format your paper.
• Sample MLA Paper with Block Quote Sample MLA paper that includes how do a block quote.

Incorporating Sources into a Research Project & Avoiding Plagiarism

• Organizing Your Research This guide from the SCC Library provides information on creating research note cards, source tables, and research outlines to help organize your sources so that you can incorporate them into your paper.
• Incorporating Sources into a Research Project This guide from the SCC Library provides resources on how to properly include sources in a research project without plagiarism, whether through good note-taking, following the research process, or using direct quotations, paraphrasing, or summarizing, etc.
• How to Paraphrase: Avoid Plagiarism in Research Papers with Paraphrases & Quotations (3 min. video) This video explains how to paraphrase information correctly to avoid plagiarism.
• English Composition I: The Writer's Circle, Lesson 9, Part 4, Integrating Research (Video) This video talk about citing sources to avoid plagiarizing. (1 min)

Additional Resources

• Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) This site contains resources for writing, research, grammar, mechanics, and style guides (MLA & APA).

The Learning Center (TLC)

• Free live online tutoring and writing help, available 24/7 -  TutorMe  (accessed through D2L).
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• Email your paper/project to them at  [email protected] . They offer a 48 hour turn-around on papers (excluding weekends and holidays), and ask that you send a copy of the assignment as well. The paper needs to be Microsoft Word format (don't share a copy of your OneDrive/cloud account), and please include your due date and SCC college ID number in the email.

Visit the The Learning Center located in the P. Dan Hull Building, rooms E2, E5, E6.  See TLC Portal Page (SCC log in required) for additional locations. Contact The Learning Center for more information .

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Overarching guide on writing a career research paper.

What is a career research paper? It is a paper written about a chosen career that appeals to the writer (student in this case.) A research paper on career is one of the most common since that is the end goal of education – a flourishing career!

The tenets of a top-notch career research paper are that it should:

Highlight your career goals. Discuss your hobbies, talents, and interests. Major on one career. Bring out the facts about the career Discuss the pros and cons of the possible career

Now, the conventions of a career research paper assignment are more formulaic than you might think. Nevertheless, it also is as simple as counting one to five. How is the latter possible? With this expert articulated article, you will find it smooth writing such a paper.

Are you ready to unravel the secret writing formula? Well, keep on reading. Remember, we always save the best for the last part.

How to Write a Career Research Paper

Why can’t I use a career research paper sample and get done with this once and for all? Before you start aiming all those criticism guns, allow me to tell you why such a comprehensive guide is necessary:

It brings out all the information readers need to know It shows readers the order in which they need to write

You will never find these things when you decide to jump right into a career research paper example. That said and done, let us see how to structure a college research paper on careers. We will begin with the most critical part:

A Career Research Paper Outline

The outline of a top career research paper should entail all the career’s positive and negative perspectives. Also, a thorough evaluation of your skills and shortcomings relevant to the subject are essential when coming up with the outline.

How do you achieve an entertaining, informative, and practical outline for your career research paper? Read on.

The Introduction

Someone once said, “show me your introduction and I will tell you whether I will read your paper or not.” A top-grade career research paper introduction should:

Have information about yourself such as your talents, goals, and interests Include a good definition of a career such as nursing, journalism, and engineering – what does the job entail? Contain a thesis statement that clearly explains the focus of the paper – from which perspective are you handling your paper?

Be sure to end the introduction with a strong declarative statement on your research paper’s career choice.

Depending on the topic you chose for your career paper, the body content may vary. However, these are the standard guidelines to help you write it effectively:

• Hierarchically present the information – begin with the essential details, such as the features of the career.
• Have a topic sentence for each body paragraph of your paper.

If you have a research paper on nursing career, these pointers can come in handy for you:

• What is the nature and responsibilities of nursing as a career?
• Which minimum qualifications do I need for this job?
• What are the challenges involved in pursuing this career?
• What are the positives of nursing?
• Is nursing worth pursuing?

For a research paper on career choice, these use some of the ideas below:

Which skills do I have which complement the career responsibilities? Which schools offer the best programs for the career? How does the job I chose to reflect on my career goals? Where do I need to improve to succeed in this career? How many hours will I need to dedicate to this career?

All these ideas and prompts do not only apply to one career choice; they cut across the divide. Feel free to use them to make your career research paper body as in-depth as possible.

And finally,

The Conclusion

Here, you will make a summary of the most relevant points in your discussion. You should have an appealing concluding statement that effectively wraps up the research paper.

The climax of all this is to justify your decision to pursue a particular career.

Careers Research Paper: Pro Tips

To spice up your research paper on careers; these professionally brainstormed tips will act as your anchor:

• Write on a career that appeals to you; this way, you will have more points to discuss.
• Explore career sites such as Careerbuilder.com or Monster.com to get career ideas.
• Delve deep into the benefits and limitations of possible careers. You can make a chart to achieve this quickly.
• Your career + your goals + your skills + your interests = your topic.
• It should be informative and subjective as opposed to a boring story about a career you like.
• Include the trends in the career path you wish to take

Hopefully, at the end of your career paper, you will have a clear picture of what you would like to do in the future.

Career Research Paper Nailed With Ease

Organizing your thoughts is vital in coming up with a perfect research paper on careers. Fortunately, with this guide, you can accomplish that and get your paper started right away!

Nevertheless, if you are still having challenges, you can count on our top-notch research paper writing services. The rates are pocket friendly, and you will not regret one single bit. Post your order now and see your grades soar higher than the eagles.

A Career Research Project for Middle School

• Kellie Hayden
• Categories : Lesson plans for middle school social studies
• Tags : Teaching middle school grades 6 8

At the middle school level, students should start thinking about what they really want to do so that they can start preparing for that career. Students will complete a career inventory, research three careers and present the information in the project to the class.

Career Inventory

Now that students have been in the school system for several years, some may have decided that they really don’t want to go to college for more than eight years to be a doctor. However, some do not know what they want to do.

Some schools use printed career inventories and these can become part of this project. However, there are many free career inventories online that student can complete. Teachers should try them out before asking students to go online. Many websites ask for email addresses to send the results. The teacher could have all the students give the teacher’s school email address so that all the results go to the teacher first. However, teachers should follow their school Internet policies when completing this project.

Once the career inventories are completed, students should have a list of possible careers that they might be interested in researching. Students should select three careers on which they would like to complete additional research.

Career Research

Now that students have three possible careers, they can start researching those jobs. They need to find out the following for each career:

1. Career Preparation

• Amount of years of college and or job training needed: on the job training, one year certificate, Associate’s Degree, Bachelor’s Degree, Master’s Degree or Doctorate Degree.
• Amount of training time on the job before a full salary can be earned.

2. Job Description

• Describe the day-to-day duties and tasks that are required of the job.
• Describe equipment and/or technology that will be used on the job.
• Describe the setting for the career, such as a hospital, ship, office building, outdoors, etc.
• Explain the parts of the country where a student can find this job.

3. Pay or Salary

• Describe a starting salary or rate of pay per hour for this job (sometimes students find a top salary that is unrealistic for a beginning worker).

When students have found the information for three careers, they need to prepare a report that they will share as a presentation. First, they need to decide what career they like best from all of the information. Then, they need to report on why this career is the best fit for them. They should give the facts about the other jobs and why the other two jobs are not a good fit for them. They also need to find a visual aid, such as equipment/technology used on the job, uniform worn, place of work, etc.

Presentation and Assessment

Once students have written up their reports on their top choice for a career, they need to write it out on note cards. Students need to practice presenting their reports as homework. Then, they will present their information to the class.

To assess the presentation, teachers can use a rubric. The criteria for the rubric could be as follows: career information and facts, voice, eye contact, and visual aids. Teachers can have students write out their report in a final copy format and assess that as well.

This project is one that students will see has a real-world application. Most will be very excited to be thinking about their future and what they really want to be when they grow up.

This post is part of the series: Help Your Students Set Future Goals & Plan for Careers With These Lesson Plans

It’s never too early for students to think about what they will do once their graduation cap is tossed in the air and high school is behind them. Help your students prepare for and think about their future with these lesson plans meant to motivate and inspire.

• Help Your Students Reach For the Stars With a Classroom Goal Tree
• Project for Middle School Students to Research Careers
• A Lesson on Goal Setting for Students: A Vital Skill for Success

Create a Career Research Project using Google Slides

Titl e: Use Google Slides to Create a Slideshow Presentation

Overview :  Students will use Google Slides to create and present a slideshow based on the topic of “My Future Career”. Students will research content and the use of Google Slides will be facilitated by the Computer/Digital Literacy Teacher.

Content/Context : The content will be based on the student’s chosen future career and will include elements such as motivation, education and training, job description, salary and job growth. This lesson is aimed at students preparing for college and careers, in an advanced writing class.

Length of lesson: 8 hours

Digital Literacy Standards  addressed: PowerPoint 1 - 15

College and Career Readiness Standards   (CCRS) and/or Transitions Integration Framework   (TIF) Standards addressed: TBC

Lesson Objective(s): At the end of this lesson, students will be able to: create and present a slideshow in Google Slides.

Assessing Mastery of the Objective(s):   By the end of this lesson, students will have created a coherent slideshow, based on their chosen career subject, that is ready to present. The slideshow will contain relevant information about their chosen career (based on the questions asked in the questionnaire); include pictures to enhance the information provided; include slide transitions; show changes to individual slide layout (if applicable); show the selection of a theme for the slideshow and cite/quote information sources.(based on the Google Slides rubric in the Questionnaire document)

Prerequisites: Students require an active GMAIL account to be able to access the Google suite of programs, including Google Slides.

Materials/links: A questionnaire will be provided to students to help them gather the information they required for their slideshow content. (a copy is included in the materials).  The questions asked on the questionnaire are to be used as slide headings and/or determine content. A rubric is also included detailing what each slide should contain. 

Lesson Outline:

Introduction: An introduction to the topic of the slideshow to be made by the class teacher outlining the goals and standards required of the final product. This is to be followed up by an introduction to Google Slides.

Explanation/Modeling: The functions of Google Slides   are to be modeled and explained by the Computer/Digital Literacy Instructor.  These would include adding/duplicating slides, changing slide layout, adding slide title (best practice), selecting a theme, inserting pictures (from files on the computer/network or from online), manipulating images, inserting text boxes, formatting text, including animations.

An example slideshow could be used to give students some guidelines as to how their final slideshow should look and what the content should be.

Guided Practice: Students will follow the Instructor’s lead in creating their initial slides, theme, slide titles, slide layout(s), inserting and working with pictures, inserting and working with text boxes, formatting text as appropriate.

Independent Practice: Students will create new or duplicate slides as appropriate; students will add relevant content; students may change the slideshow theme; students will add and format text as appropriate (to the chosen theme); students will insert and work with pictures; students will insert and work with text boxes; students will cite sources of information as appropriate and as outlined by their Class teacher.

Student Reflection on Learning, Closure, Connection:  Students will present to their fellow students, if time allows, in the Computer Class.  Otherwise, students will carry out presentations and reflections with their class teacher.

No Alignments yet.

Cite this work

STEM Career Research Project for Middle School

• December 18, 2022
• Engineering , STEM
• Career Exploration , Engaging Lessons , Real World Connections

How do you inspire future scientists and engineers? Do your students know what careers are STEM careers and what it means to have a career in STEM? You can answer these questions and more with this multi-day STEM career project !

STEM Career Research Project

In this project, students will choose an engineering career to research. They will discover the job roles and responsibilities, possible work environments, education requirements, average salaries, helpful skills and traits, and projected job growth in that field. Then students will imagine a company that is looking to hire a person in that career field. They’ll examine real-world job postings and then design and create a “help wanted” poster for their chosen career. Next, students will present their work and learn about other careers in a gallery walk activity. Finally, they’ll complete an independent reflection activity.

This STEM career research project is independent and low-prep. Grab this resource today! You will save your prep time, and know your students will be engaged and inspired while learning about STEM careers.

What’s included in the STEM Careers Research Project?

This no-prep project includes everything you need for 3-5 days of engaging STEM activities, including: 

• Printable PDF, Google, and Easel versions of the student activities and worksheets
• A webquest that guides students to choose and research a STEM career
• Detailed guidelines and  templates for the “Help Wanted” job advertisement project
• A graphic organizer for capturing student learning during the Gallery Walk activity
• An independent reflection worksheet to be completed at the end of the project
• Embedded links to quality background research websites
• Detailed teacher notes for easy facilitation
• An easy-to-use grading rubric

What materials do you need?

You only need to provide printed or digital copies of the student worksheets and devices with internet access for research. 

How can you use the STEM career project in your classroom?

You can use the research project as a week-long study of STEM careers. You will open your students’ eyes to career options that they may have never before considered. This is a great introductory activity for your STEM class, and it can be used to celebrate National Engineering Week in February.

This STEM career project is also perfect for giving yourself a bit of a break when you are feeling burnt out or feeling frustrated with challenging student behaviors. For example, you could use the project to keep students engaged before a school holiday. You can also use the project to keep students learning when you have unusual schedules or low attendance due to field trips, testing, assemblies, or other interruptions. Or, you can leave the low-prep project as a multi-day STEM sub plan.

Looking for other STEM Career activities?

If you’d like more ideas for inspiring your students and teaching them about STEM careers, check out this blog post on exploring STEM careers !

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The world is driven by liquid-vapor phase change

Uc engineering professor gets nsf career award to fund research on liquid films.

University of Cincinnati professor Kishan Bellur is captivated by evaporation — a phenomenon that is happening all the time, all around us, but few of us notice. Most liquid surfaces, for example, water in a test tube, are not flat. There is a slight curvature to it called the meniscus. As the liquid evaporates, it climbs up the side of the tube forming a very thin liquid film that is hard to see with the naked eye. Understanding the evaporation process and the behavior of these films are the focus of Bellur's latest research. 

Kishan Bellur. Photo/Corrie Mayer/CEAS Marketing

Bellur, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, received the highly regarded National Science Foundation CAREER Award to fund his research on the behavior of thin evaporating liquid films for the next five years. 

Scientists are interested in studying these films because of their unique properties. Despite appearing to be stable, they actually dance around or oscillate, triggered by different factors, all of which result in a transfer of energy. This oscillation under the right conditions can move the meniscus, causing the liquid to shift up or down.

"The connection between the thin film and the rest of the meniscus is relatively unknown. That is the focus of the project," Bellur said. "We are running experiments and doing computer modeling to connect the currently unknown pieces of all length scales — from thin films to the bulk menisci." 

During his doctoral studies, Bellur became interested in thin films while studying storage and evaporation of liquid hydrogen (rocket fuel) at extremely low temperatures. He realized that as hydrogen evaporates inside spacecraft tanks, it wicks up the sides of the wall and forms a thin liquid film that can oscillate. By delving deeper into the properties of these films and the wicking behaviors, a realization dawned on him. 

"Digging deeper into why these films oscillate, it turns out the film stability is all about a mismatch between the evaporation and condensation process," Bellur said. 

Kishan Bellur became interested in thin films during his doctoral studies. Photo/Corrie Mayer/CEAS Marketing

Evaporation is a very energy intensive process. To evaporate something, heat is applied, however, the temperature remains constant. This is one of those unique processes where heat transport does not require a temperature change. Additionally, the thin film, where much of this evaporation takes place, covers an extremely small area, making it a very efficient heat transfer mechanism in terms of square footage. Bellur and his team at the UC Lab for Interfacial Dynamics  are studying how they can leverage these behaviors to develop better, more efficient heat transfer devices and make make advancements in space technology, hydrogen energy, and advanced manufacturing. 

Paired with the research Bellur and his team are conducting, this NSF award also focuses on education and outreach. When Bellur was walking around a local farmers market, a realization struck him: phase change and fluid dynamics are key ingredients in cooking. 

Scientific principles are all around the kitchen. For instance, the bubbling dynamics of boiling water to cook pasta, the heat transfer processes when baking a cake, the reaction of baking powder when added to a recipe; these are all examples of seemingly simple cooking tasks that are grounded in science. In short, the kitchen is a laboratory that is used by almost everyone. 

Graduate students in Kishan Bellur's lab participate in meaningful research under his guidance. Photo/Corrie Mayer/CEAS Marketing

Bellur and his engineering undergraduate students are partnering with the Hyde Park Farmers Market in Cincinnati to set up a booth with demonstrations to showcase the science happening in the kitchen with marketgoers. 

"I realized we could use the humble kitchen as an accessible personal laboratory to teach people about basic scientific principles," Bellur said. 

The goal of this outreach is to educate the public on scientific principles that are occurring in daily life and inspire them to think about science. 

In addition to the NSF CAREER project, Bellur is also involved with many facets of space research including that on the International Space Station. Currently through an NSF and Center for Advancement of Science in Space program, he is working on a unique sensor module to gather new data from a boiling and condensation experiment on the ISS. Bellur is also funded through the NASA Physical Sciences Informatics program wherein he and his team are extracting unique insights from data gathered in prior ISS experiments. 

Bellur advocates for undergraduate student research and fosters student development through various programs such as NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates and the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation . 

Featured image at top: Kishan Bellur received the prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his research on thin liquid films. Photo/Corrie Mayer/CEAS Marketing

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University of Cincinnati professor Kishan Bellur is captivated by evaporation - a phenomena that is happening all the time, all around us, but few of us notice. Most liquid surfaces, for example, water in a test tube, are not flat. There is a slight curvature to it called the meniscus. As the liquid evaporates, it climbs up the side of the tube forming a very thin liquid film that is hard to see with the naked eye. Understanding the evaporation process and the behavior of these films are the focus of Bellur's latest research.

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Title: dijiang: efficient large language models through compact kernelization.

Abstract: In an effort to reduce the computational load of Transformers, research on linear attention has gained significant momentum. However, the improvement strategies for attention mechanisms typically necessitate extensive retraining, which is impractical for large language models with a vast array of parameters. In this paper, we present DiJiang, a novel Frequency Domain Kernelization approach that enables the transformation of a pre-trained vanilla Transformer into a linear complexity model with little training costs. By employing a weighted Quasi-Monte Carlo method for sampling, the proposed approach theoretically offers superior approximation efficiency. To further reduce the training computational complexity, our kernelization is based on Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) operations. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method achieves comparable performance to the original Transformer, but with significantly reduced training costs and much faster inference speeds. Our DiJiang-7B achieves comparable performance with LLaMA2-7B on various benchmark while requires only about 1/50 training cost. Code is available at this https URL .

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Announcing 2024 Kempner Institute Research Fellows

Six innovative, early-career scientists awarded fellowships to work on projects that advance the fundamental understanding of intelligence.

Cambridge, MA – The Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Harvard is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2024 Kempner Institute Research Fellowships. The 2024 recipients are Thomas Fel, Mikail Khona, Bingbin Liu, Isabel Papadimitriou, Noor Sajid, and Aaron Walsman.

All six fellowship recipients are early-career scientists, representing a diversity of backgrounds and expertise, who are working on novel research questions at the intersections of natural and artificial intelligence. 

Each fellow will serve for a term of up to three years and will receive salary and research funds, office space, and mentorship. Fellows set their research agenda but are strongly encouraged to work between fields and to collaborate with experts at the Kempner Institute and throughout Harvard University. 

2024 Kempner Research Fellows

Thomas Fel researches large vision models, particularly their explainability and how they align with human vision. Motivated to uncover the secrets behind the exceptional ability of vision models to generalize, Fel blends computational techniques with insights from neuroscience to better grasp the inner workings of these models. This interdisciplinary approach not only aims to enrich the understanding of artificial intelligence but also positions this knowledge as a tool for probing into human intelligence.

Mikail Khona aims to develop tools and approaches to interpret and improve large foundational models. He uses an empirical approach, studying phenomena in these models and reverse-engineering them to identify their origins, attempting to trace back these behaviors to specific aspects of the model’s architecture, training data, or learning algorithms. This approach can improve the robustness and efficiency of these models and inform future model design. In addition, Khona’s work explores the intersection of biology and AI and examines the extent to which deep neural networks provide a natural language to describe biological phenomena.

Bingbin Liu is interested in the mathematical and empirical science of machine learning phenomena. Her research uses simple abstractions as testbeds for understanding complex systems, typically beginning with theoretical analyses and subsequently applying these insights to practical scenarios. Her work has focused on understanding the design choices in self-supervised learning, as well as exploring the capabilities and limitations of Transformers in reasoning. Looking forward, she is especially interested in investigating the factors affecting training efficiency and the reliability of models at inference time.

Isabel Papadimitriou works on understanding and defining the capabilities of large language models in relation to the human language system. Her work centers on two questions, bringing together the human and artificial faculties for language. Firstly, how do large language models work? To this end, she uses analyses from language science and applies them to artificial language learners in order to analyze the language system that LLMs latently encode. Secondly, how can a successful artificial language learner inform our knowledge of the human language system? She empirically tests the limits of artificial language learning under different conditions, to expand our hypothesis space about how human language learning and representation might function.

Noor Sajid aims to imbue artificial agents with the adaptability seen in biological intelligence, enabling these systems to apply learned knowledge to a variety of tasks within small-scale training data regimes. Accordingly, her research is grounded in developing generative models for understanding and mimicking biological decision-making to investigate how artificial agents can adapt to and learn from environmental perturbations, similar to humans and animals. Going forward, she plans to expand these models and delve deeper into the dynamics that facilitate the flexible utilization of acquired information.

Aaron Walsman investigates online information gathering and memory for agents in interactive environments. This work is primarily concerned with complex partially observable settings where an agent must reason about the limits of the information available to them and decide how to conduct further exploration to find the new information necessary to solve a particular task. The long-term goal of this research is to develop AI systems that intelligently reason over very long time horizons by selectively retaining the most important information from the past in order to make plans for improving their understanding in the future.

About the Kempner

The  Kempner Institute  seeks to understand the basis of intelligence in natural and artificial systems by recruiting and training future generations of researchers to study intelligence from biological, cognitive, engineering, and computational perspectives. Its bold premise is that the fields of natural and artificial intelligence are intimately interconnected; the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) will require the same principles that our brains use for fast, flexible natural reasoning, and understanding how our brains compute and reason can be elucidated by theories developed for AI. Join the   Kempner mailing list   to learn more, and to receive updates and news.

PRESS CONTACT:

Deborah Apsel Lang | (617) 495-7993 [email protected]

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Meet the Program Director: Dr. Charles Werth

Dr. Charles Werth is a new ARPA-E Program Director. His research prior to joining ARPA-E focused on the intersection of mass transport, fluid flow, interfacial and geo-chemistry, redox reactions, microbial physiology, and material science for the development of sustainable water treatment, groundwater remediation, and geological carbon sequestration technologies.

What brought you to ARPA-E?

I came to ARPA-E because of the opportunity to help advance early-stage technologies that address water-energy challenges. I’ve worked on research related to water supply and treatment for most of my career, and I have a strong interest in how water impacts energy use and vice versa. As an academic, however, I was more focused on fundamental research than technology development and commercialization. ARPA-E presents an entirely new challenge and opportunity to think about moving research to the next level, and to have a more direct impact on water-energy challenges. I think addressing these challenges is particularly important because many cities in the U.S. are struggling to provide clean water economically. Also, we expect energy demands for water supply and treatment to grow with increasing water scarcity as we treat and use increasingly compromised or distant water sources. Additionally, I came to ARPA-E to learn about and contribute to the development of new technologies for other energy challenges, including carbon sequestration and subsurface resource recovery. 

Tell us about your background.

I received my graduate training in environmental engineering, focusing on physical and chemical processes that affect the reactive transport of pollutants in groundwater. After graduating, I entered academia, and have been a professor for the past 27 years, first at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and since 2014 at the University of Texas at Austin. My interests have expanded since graduate school, and I’ve guided interdisciplinary research projects that focus on sustainable water treatment, groundwater remediation, and geological carbon sequestration. Most of my research has been funded by federal agencies, including the DOE, DOD, NSF, EPA, and USGS. I’ve advised 27 Ph.D. students who graduated and went on to careers in academia, industry, and consulting. I’ve served on a number of review and advisory panels. Among them, I served on the U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board from 2014-2017, where I enjoyed contributing to addressing environmental challenges at the intersection of science and policy. I also served as a Chief Editor for the Journal of Contaminant Hydrology from 2014-2023, where I enjoyed helping to expand the journal scope and broadening my exposure to great research.

How does your past work drive your current work supporting ARPA-E’s mission of developing entirely new ways to generate, store, and use energy?

In my prior work on water and wastewater treatment, I learned that energy represents a large fraction of treatment costs, and that wastewater contains many valuable materials that we remove during treatment for disposal. This drives my efforts to develop a new program area on innovative technologies to recover high energy-value materials from wastewater. In my prior work on geological carbon sequestration, I learned about mechanisms that affect the flow, transport, and reaction of various fluids in deep subsurface formations, including CO 2 , hydrocarbons, and hydrogen. This motivates and informs my efforts to contribute to programs in carbon capture, storage, and subsurface resource recovery.

What’s it been like to work at ARPA-E now that you’ve got a few months under your belt to reflect?

Working at ARPA-E has been great. My colleagues are engaged, smart, and supportive. They have very different backgrounds, and I’m learning about so many new energy challenges and technologies from them. To build my first ARPA-E research program, I’ve been engaging with lots of different people. This includes engineers and scientists, as well as CEOs, CTOs, and Technology-to-Market experts. These engagements have broadened my perspective and knowledge of energy challenges and possible solutions and are helping me better understand the bottlenecks that can derail technology commercialization.

In what innovative ways would you like to explore carbon sequestration technologies and mitigating the environmental impacts of energy production?

Carbon sequestration technologies are advancing at an amazing pace. Last year, the DOE announced $1.2 billion for development of two commercial-scale direct air capture facilities. Despite these advancements, carbon sequestration technologies are still in their infancy. We need early-stage applied research to discover new materials and material properties that will enable us to more selectively sequester CO 2  from air and other mixed gas streams, and we need new and less energy-intensive processes to permanently store CO 2 . I look forward to working with my colleagues at ARPA-E to identify and support projects that target the most promising materials and processes to address these fundamental challenges.

What new program areas or technical whitespaces are you interested in exploring?

I’ve been working in water my entire adult life and am interested in substantially decreasing energy demands and carbon emissions associated with water supply and treatment. As I mentioned earlier, my first efforts at ARPA-E are focused on developing a new program on high energy-value materials recovery from wastewater, where wastewater is broadly defined to include municipal, animal, industry, and reverse osmosis concentrate sources. Two other areas I’m interested in are electrification of chemical oxidation technologies in water and wastewater treatment and using artificial intelligence for long-range water planning. The latter area would have broad implications for how municipalities and cities plan for future water resources and treatment, and could have immense energy implications when cities have to choose between pumping a cleaner source water from further away or treating a more compromised source water closer to home.

What do you hope to accomplish during your tenure at ARPA-E?

I hope to lead development of at least a few new programs at the water-energy nexus. I hope to oversee other diverse energy recovery and carbon emissions reduction projects, and to help guide applied research efforts that lead to new cutting-edge technologies and commercialization. I hope to make friends, have fun, and learn what makes or breaks commercialization efforts of new technologies across the energy space.

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

At michigan state university, frib professorial assistant earns goldwater scholarship.

Aaron Philip, a professorial assistant at FRIB, has earned a  Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship , becoming Michigan State University’s fifty-fifth Goldwater Scholar.

The Goldwater Foundation seeks sophomores and juniors committed to a research career in STEM fields with the potential for significant future contribution in their chosen field. The award provides $7,500 per year in funding for 51 students for undergraduate tuition and living expenses.

For the 2024 Goldwater Scholarship competition, 1,353 undergraduates were nominated by 446 institutions. Philip was among 438 scholars selected. The funding for the award is a collaboration between the U.S. Congress and the Department of Defense’s National Defense Education Program.

Philip is a second-year Michigan State University student from Los Alamos, New Mexico studying Physics and Advanced Mathematics in the College of Natural Science. He is also a member of the Honors College.

“I am honored and humbled to join the ranks of Spartan Goldwater Scholars. I share this recognition with my professors, research mentors, fellow students, and family who have all supported me and cultivated my passion to pursue a career in physics research,” Philip said. “Specifically, I would like to thank my research mentors over the past few years for their guidance, encouragement, and mentorship: Drs. Pablo Giuliani, Kyle Godbey, Witek Nazarewicz, Odelia Schwartz, Jianliang Qian, and Benjamin Nebgen.”

Philip is passionate about pursuing a career in research addressing micro-scale physics problems using analytic approaches, high performance computing, and AI. He has contributed to diverse research projects through his roles as a professorial assistant at FRIB, a Discovering America researcher with MSU’s Math Department, a student intern at the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and as a Computer Science Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student at the University of Miami.

“Aaron joined our nuclear theory research group at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University in August 2022 as an undergraduate research assistant. An incoming first-year undergraduate student, he came extremely well prepared to directly work in forefront research and quickly managed to get acquainted with the necessary tools and background knowledge,” Kyle Godbey, a research assistant professor at FRIB, and Witold Nazarewicz, John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Physics and chief scientist at FRIB, said.

“During the course of his work, Aaron was able to reach a level of mastery of theoretical and computational methods on par with the current experts in the field. We consider ourselves to be incredibly lucky to have Aaron as a member of our research group and we have no doubt that he will go on to have a successful research career,” Godbey and Nazarewicz said.

“Aaron’s research at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams has been exemplary, and his mentorship activities embody the values of care and support that empower excellence at the MSU Honors College. We congratulate Aaron on being named a Goldwater Scholar,” Long said.

Philip has written two papers and presented at various conferences, including MSU’s Mathematics and Data Science Conferences, the University of Miami’s Computer Science REU Poster Presentation, and a LANL Lab Directed Research and Development Review. He also serves as a student tutor through the Mathematics Learning Center and at East Lansing High School.

“Congratulations to Aaron on this esteemed achievement,” said FRIB Laboratory Director Thomas Glasmacher. “Being named a Goldwater Scholar is a testament to Aaron’s dedication and outstanding efforts. We are so proud he is furthering his research pursuits at FRIB and honored to be part of his journey as he prepares to become a leader in our field.”

Read the original article on the  MSUToday website .

Michigan State University operates the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics.