Career Outlook Investigation Approximate Time Needed: Multi-day project Lesson Summary: Students will investigate the social, political, and economic factors which affect the growth outlook of a selected career in a specific state. Lesson Objective: Students will research understand and communicate the external factors which impact a community's job market needs. Materials and Resources: Career Directory or Career Search and Career Strategy tool ECOS Career List Outside research materials (local newspapers, periodicals, and websites) Helpful Hints: Divide students into groups based on career interest or geographic concentration in order to collect the most comprehensive data. Initial research will use ECOS, but the majority of the project will use outside resources. Let students initiate a Career Search to feel a larger personal investment in the lesson. If time and computer space are issues, the Career Directory may be more practical. Activities: Introduce the concept of multiple social, political, and economic factors affecting a career field's presence in a state. Use the ECOS Career List to have students select a career on which they will investigate the reasons for the career growth outlook information given. You may wish to pre-select careers for the students to save time. Assign each student (or group) a state they will research. Students use the Career Search or go to the Career Directory, locate the appropriate career and save the career to their Locker. Students go to Career Strategy. From here a table of the career's national and state job growth outlook will be displayed. Ask students to use the select list to locate the individual states assigned to them. After clicking on the "Submit" button the specific state's job growth outlook information will be shown. Have students record the data. Students use outside material to research the factors which have or will lead to the changes in job growth and outlook. Students prepare a written and oral presentation for the class including visual aides (e.g. posters and/or graphs representing the data). Evaluation: The written and oral presentations are the basis of evaluation. Possible Adaptations: Instead of using a state as the focus of the research, incorporate local community or regional examples of career field changes. Compare the difference between the same job in 2 different states. Compare the job growth outlook information for 2-3 careers in the same area. Use Excel graphing or PowerPoint to incorporate into presentations.