career research project for middle school students

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20 Career Activities For Middle School: Tech Integration, Events, And Resources

February 23, 2024 //  by  Shelley Uselman

If the question “what do you want to be when you grow up” leads to blank stares, then you’re in the right place! Middle school students are just beginning to recognize that they have a place in the world. Help them explore their potential through fun career activities!

These 20 middle school activities will help your students develop their own identities as they explore career choices. Many of the jobs they will have in the future are in fields that don’t yet exist; make sure to focus on building essential skills alongside career research.

1. 5 Reasons That Career Exploration Must Begin in Middle School 

This article has some excellent background on the challenges that high school graduates are facing when they leave school without a plan. For students who do have a plan, they began to formulate that plan during middle school. Take some time to read through the reasons why middle school career education is a must.

Learn More: Apprentice Learning

2. Middle School CTE Podcasts and Webinars

Check out this collection of podcasts and webinars that focus specifically on exploring Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs for middle school.

Learn More: Association for Carreer and Technical Education

3. Host a Career Day

Community members love to be part of local schools! Hosting a Career Day is a great way to build connections between your school and your community. Don’t forget to invite a well-known community figure to start it off!

Learn More: Sign Up Genius

4. Self-Reflection Activities

One of the great things about middle school students is that they start to see themselves as individuals. Before diving into career exploration activities, it is helpful to first get them thinking about their strengths and likes. This will help them when thinking about their career journey.

Learn More: MN Program of Study

5. Online Self-Assessment

This career clusters interest survey would be best for older middle school students who have already done some self-reflection on their skills and interests, or it could be used as a whole-class example of how to explore career clusters.

Learn More: Education Planner

6. Complete Middle School Program Resource

If you’re building a program from scratch, this entire career unit will provide everything you need! There are 36 lessons targeting 6th and 7th grade students. That’s enough to cover most of the school year!

Learn More: Exploring

7. Collaborative Job Shadow

This twist on traditional job shadowing uses a stuffed school mascot or another object. Parents take the object to work and take pictures while it “participates” in different job-related tasks! Once the object has explored a variety of careers, put together a bulletin board or other display to create career biographies within your community!

Learn More: The Creative Counselor

8. Reality Check

Do you want to live in a house or apartment? City or suburbs? Fancy car or public transportation? Once students make their choices, they’ll get the “reality check” of how much that lifestyle will cost! This works to show how decisions about careers can influence their future.

Learn More: Texas Reality Check

9. Occupational Posters

These posters can be downloaded and printed for use as career awareness activities. They are organized as career clusters and show a connection between careers. Chances are, there is a poster for a career that students have never heard of!

Learn More: Workforce Solutions

10. Claim Your Future Game

Available as a classroom or online game, this resource has students develop awareness about career options through different scenarios. In addition to asking about future financial goals, students are given an average salary and have to make decisions about career paths.

Learn More: Claim Your Future

11. Careers Taboo

A fun do-it-yourself career game is based on the popular board game “Taboo.” Students are given a topic from their college & career vocabulary that they must describe to their team, but there are specific words that can not be used. This is a great way to get kids thinking about different career pathways while having fun!

Learn More: Ms. Sepp’s Counselor Corner

12. My First Resume

Students struggle with how to describe their skills. Some middle school students may be looking at summer jobs and need to learn how to write a resume. This resource provides an example of what should be on the resume of a younger person, and how to format it appropriately.

Learn More: Money Prodigy

13. Career Day at Pixie Academy

While targeting elementary grades, this reading activity does a fantastic job of exploring how we can individually contribute to our community through the variety of jobs we have. This activity would work for 6th grade, or older middle school students could be paired with younger students.

Learn More: Common Lit

14. Scholastic “Jobs of the Future” 

Scholastic has published dozens of career readiness activities, recognizing that the jobs of today won’t necessarily be the jobs of tomorrow. Browse through the links to resources for a wide variety of tasks geared towards recognizing current occupation trends.

Learn More: Scholastic

15. Career Personality Profiler

Best for older middle school students, this fun career exploration activity approaches career paths by examining personality traits. Great for students who enjoy taking online personality quizzes!

Learn More: Truity

16. The Uber Game

It’s important for kids to learn about non-traditional forms of employment, such as the gig economy or freelancing. In this fun career planning game, players will explore whether or not they can make enough to pay the bills by working as an Uber driver.

Learn More: The Uber Game

17. Career Village

To quote their intro, “Career Village is a community where students can get free personalized career advice from real-life professionals.” This is a great resource for students who have career aspirations that don’t line up with what is usually explored. This website allows them to connect with real professionals in a wide variety of careers.

Learn More: Career Village

18. Take Your Child to Work Day

Originally designed as “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” to introduce more girls into the workforce, this annual event has evolved into an opportunity for all kids to experience what their parents or caregivers do on a day-to-day basis at work. This website covers one professional’s experience with this day, and also includes resources for those who work from home but still want to participate!

19. Career Research Worksheet

This worksheet is a great way to introduce career research. With easily-identified topics, students can quickly figure out what skills are needed, how much it pays, and most importantly, what opportunities for growth there are in their chosen field.

Learn More: Biz World

20. Earn Your Future

This final resource is another exploration for students around career education. In “Earn Your Future,” students work their way through modules that explore the different topics related to potential careers. The modules are organized by grade level, so you’re sure to find the topics you need!

Learn More: PwC Charitable Foundation

Career Exploration for Students and Kids (19 Free Resources)

By: Author Amanda L. Grossman

Posted on Last updated: December 29, 2023

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Teach students and kids about careers with these 19 free worksheets and lesson plans. Career exploration for students to do.

One of the most important reasons behind a formal education – besides teaching your students how to think for themselves – is to get kids ready to take on an engaging and exciting career.

And a career? Well, that’s the foundation to any person being able financially provide for themselves – what we call, financial independence.

That’s why I take a real interest in helping kids, tweens, and teens get the best fun career exploration activities resources out there.

So that one day, they can find a fulfilling job and be able to earn enough money to not only survive, but thrive.

Career Exploration for Students

What all is involved in career exploration for students?

To be honest, there’s a lot to cover here.

You want to provide fun and engaging activities for topics like:

• Understanding Careers : The foundational blocks of understanding how a person earns money, having a job versus working on a career, how to develop your career, etc.
• Career Interest Assessments : Which careers intersect a child’s natural abilities and a child’s interests?
• Career Investigation : What does a day look like when holding down a job in one of those career fields that interests a student? What’s the salary like? This can include activities in the classroom, research, and also shadowing.
• Skill Identification and Development : What skills do they need to pursue a job that interests them? What level of education would they need?
• Understanding How to Get Hired : Things like interviews, creating a resume, job searches, etc. are critical for students to know how to do.
• Career Stepping Stones : What steps can the student take right now (and before they graduate high school) in order to set themselves just a few steps closer to getting into that career field (i.e. internships, volunteer activities, writing a first resume (here are free teen resume templates ), type of afterschool/weekend jobs)?
• Income and Paycheck Management : Discussing how to not only manage a paycheck from a real-job, but also how to manage your career so that your income more than matches current cost of living needs. Also, going over paycheck taxes, pay type (salary, hourly, commissions), insurance, workplace retirement contributions, and other deductions.

Whew – that list wasn’t meant to overwhelm you.

Rather, I wanted to inspire you with what an important and life-changing topic you’re covering with your students and kids.

Plus, to outline some of the areas you can cover with these fun career activities and resources I’ve found for you, below.

Career Exploration for Kids – Free Career Assessments

First up, let’s talk about how to get your kids and students actually interested in career exploration activities.

There’s no better way to pique a student’s interest than to find out what THEY are most interested in learning about.

One way to do this is to start off your unit of study with free career assessments.

1. Truity.com Career Assessment

I spoke with the people at Truity.com, and they said a good age minimum to take their free career assessment is 14/15 years of age.

The test is free to take, plus you get a basic report with results. You don’t even need to have a student register for them to do this!

However, if you want to be able to view each of your student’s results, you’d have to sign up for a Pro account.

2. CareerOneStop’s Career Assessment

This free, 30-question career quiz from the U.S. Department of Labor will help a student figure out some possible career choices.

3. O*NET Interest Profiler

Another career assessment test sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor is O*NET’s interest profiler. There are 60 questions in total.

Psst: want even more career websites for students? Here's 14 career websites for high school students .

4. CommonLit Career Day at Pixie Academy

Age: 4th Grade

Here's a reading passage that's centered around some great career and job terms. The theme of the story is Pixie finding a new job.

Assessment questions and a teacher's guide are included.

Career Exploration Worksheets for Students

While I don’t recommend you center your entire career unit around career exploration worksheets, the ones below can definitely add to students discovering jobs, industries, etc.

1. Find Your “Right Now” Job

Suggested Grades: 6-8

Scholastic has some fantastic worksheets and lesson plans to help with career exploration for students.

In the “ Find Your Right Now Job ” worksheet, students will research jobs and apprenticeships around their area of interests to find two jobs that they could apply to (when they're a bit older).

2. Career Research Worksheet

Here’s a simple, one-page worksheet you can get for free with a free account on Teachers Pay Teachers.

It will help focus your student’s career research.

3. Career Family Tree

This free worksheet of fun career activities has an idea that I love – for students to create a family career tree. They’ll need to ask family members and do the research, which of course is a great way for kids to understand their loved ones even better (plus to learn a thing or two).

4. Classroom Job Application

With a free Teachers Pay Teachers account, get this simple classroom job application your students can fill out to “apply” for classroom jobs.

5. Earning Income Career Earning Worksheet

BizWorld has this free, simple worksheet to help your students research a career and salary information.

6. Collection of Career Exploration Worksheets (9-12 grades)

Here’s a bunch of different career activities and worksheets for grades 9-12 .

Worksheets include:

• Reality Check Worksheet
• Networking Bingo
• Speed Interviewing

Career Lesson Plans

Looking for more than just career preparedness worksheets?

Check out these enter career lesson plans, available for free.

Hint: many of them include both worksheets and videos.

1. National Retail Federation's Library

The National Retail Federation (NRF) has a program called RISE Up , a certifying program with curriculum that helps students and young adults get hired in the retail industry.

Check out the RISE Up classroom activities section to find lots of short videos from people actually in the retail industry, answering questions students might have and teaching students about their industry. It also includes a worksheet for each video.

2. PWC’s Earn Your Future Digital Classroom

Check out Level 3 (for Grades 9 – 12), Module Chart Your Course . It talks about:

• The relationship between education and careers
• The opportunity cost of pursuing additional education
• The importance of monetary and nonmonetary compensation when selecting a job

3. BizKid’s It’s a Job to Get a Job

Download an entire lesson plan for high schoolers that include topics like:

• Job search techniques
• Interviewing
• Adding value as an employee

4. NGPF's Career Unit

This is a full-year course, with the following units:

• Unit Plan & Assessments
• Career Basics
• Choosing a Career
• Workplace Skills
• Finding a Job
• Your LinkedIn Profile
• Resumes & Cover Letters
• Interviewing for a Job
• Outcomes of a Job Interview
• Starting a New Job
• Career Sucesss

5. Louisiana Department of Education's Virtual Workplace Experience

The state of Louisiana has come up with these free resources to help students explore careers in LA's highest-demand industries. These are project-based learning activities.

Honestly, there's a ton here.

They've broken it down into the following units:

• General Resources
• Portfolio Projects Resources
• Getting Started
• Healthcare and Pharmacy
• Automotive Service & Repair
• Construction Crafts/Skilled Trades
• Information Technology
• Advanced Manufacturing
• Transportation and Logistics
• Business Management and Finance
• Sales and Customer Service

Career Games for Kids

These career games for kids and teens create an engaging way to teach career awareness.

1. Career Charades

Age: 7-9 years

Students are asked to brainstorm lots of different careers (it's suggested that they can ask parents, grandparents, and others to come up with ideas ahead of time).

Each student writes these ideas onto a piece of paper, and everyone takes turns acting out a career while others try to guess what they're doing.

Great for better awareness about career options!

2. Claim Your Future

Students select different career paths, are given a typical salary, and then are given various spending choices. The amount of money they spend throughout the game is tracked so that they can see, and make any adjustments as needed.

3. The Payoff

Suggested Age Range: 14 years and older

Practical Money Skills has come up with another free online career game, and this time it's all about two teenagers trying to start up a business in a competitive atmosphere.

Students will have to evaluate business deals, learn how to grow their business, and how to overcome financial challenges in business and in life.

4. Auction Adventures – Auctioneer Career Game for Kids

Suggested Age Range: Grades 3-5

Being paid by commission is wayyyyy different than getting a salary (or, even, being paid hourly). You have to actually sell something to make any money!

This game has your students calculate their commission rates while, at the same time, learning about how auctioneers work in a variety of different places.

Here's a set of worksheets to go along with this game.

5. The Uber Game

Like it or not, the “gig economy” where people are not full employees of companies, but still accept gigs from them and earn a small or substantial amount of money on the side, seems to be here to stay.

So, kids should understand how this can fit into their career and money plans!

The Uber Game gives your teen a scenario, such as they have a $1,000 mortgage payment due in a week, and then asks them to try and earn enough money through accepting gigs in order to pay that bill.

Can they do it? Is it hard or easy? Can they sustain themselves on a gig job?

Psst: You’ll want to check out my 31 free personal finance homeschool curriculum , as some of the resources also have free career resources.

Career Research for Students

When students research a career, they need to look at it from several different angles before deciding if it’s possibly on their “Career Hitlist”.

Here are the different things to research for a career:

• Find Income information : Salary, or hourly pay? What’s the range? Do people have this as their only job, or do they need to supplement with a second job to “make ends meet” (i.e. pay all their bills plus save money each month)?
• Ask People and Watch Interviews : Your student will want to make sure a day in the life of a potential profession is something they’d actually be interested in. Interviewing current employees in a profession, or even watching videos where professionals are interviewed can be really helpful.
• Find Shadow Opportunities : Students can go shadow a job within your school district, or with a family/friend. Or, they can take part in a Take Your Child to Work day at their parent’s/aunt’s employer. 

Psst: Have you ever heard of CareerVillage ? Students can ask career-related questions and get them answered by professionals, for free! Students of all ages are accepted, and they’ll need to create an account (for free) to ask a question.

1. How to Research a “Day in the Life”

You want your students to feel what it’s like to be on the job in a career path they’re researching.

Help them to do this by:

• Career Biographies : There are a vast number of what I like to call career biographies that help a child understand what it’s actually like to pursue a certain career field. I’ve got an article on 22 career books for kids , broken down by age and profession type.
• Career Videos : These can be really helpful, particularly when funds don’t allow for school field trips. MyAmericanFarm.org has a great collection of 3 to 26-minute videos on all different types of agricultural careers . PathSource has an impressive collection of career interview videos. Kids Work! Has a nice collection of ca r eer videos for kids (Grades 3-8). You can also search YouTube for “Day in the Life of _______”.
• Career Shadowing : Career shadowing was quite cool when I was in high school. Students should be encouraged to shadow someone at their job, whether it’s a parent/family member, or even someone within the school district. Reach out to your principal, vice principal, administrative assistants, and anyone else working at your school district to see if you can set up some job shadowing to go along with your career unit.
• Career Interviewing : You could have your students brainstorm a list of interview questions for someone in a job they’re curious about, and then actually help them find a person to interview either by email or in person. Imagine what they could learn from the experience!
• Take Your Child to Work Day : My sister and I both took turns taking the train to Washington D.C. to my aunt’s, and then she would take us into her job at NBC for a “Take Your Child to Work Day”. It was SO neat! It’s really a perfect way to get a taste for what a day in a job looks like (not to mention, motivate a child to want to do better at school so they can get some of the cool positions they get to see). Here's how you can do take your child to work day activities .
• Career Videos : These can be really helpful, particularly when funds don’t allow for school field trips. MyAmericanFarm.org has a great collection of 3 to 26-minute videos on all different types of agricultural careers . PathSource has an impressive collection of career interview videos. Kids Work! Has a nice collection of ca r eer videos for kids (Grades 3-8).
• Career Articles : CommonLit has some Day in the Life career articles, such as A Day in the Life of an Astronaut . Also, ReadWorks has some of these articles.

2. How to Research Income Information

While it used to be difficult to figure out income averages for a career or job type, it’s quite simple nowadays thanks to some seriously great, free, resources provided by the Department of Labor.

Here’s a one-stop salary finder , where you enter the occupation and your location to get an idea of the average pay.

It also offers a listing of professions, so students can click around by career cluster (or category) and just explore.

Psst: another important thing to make students aware of through research? Are career projections. In other words, is an industry or job path they want to pursue growing, or are the jobs getting scarcer? Here’s a great resource from Workforce Solutions (for just the Houston-Galveston area, though it still drives the point home about the importance of this question) that shares percentages for various careers.

3. Lessons to Understand Paycheck Taxes and Deductions

EverFI has free financial literacy lessons for kids and students, and Lesson 3 is on income and taxes .

Students will be given different ideas about careers, as well as the pros and cons to each.

Career Projects for Middle School Students

Looking for a career project your middle school students will enjoy?

1. Middle School Exploratory Tasks

Kentucky's Department of Education has a really cool resource – a group of middle school career projects, broken down by 16 different career clusters (and 80 different career pathways within those clusters).

Not only that, but they have student work samples for each one!

There are projects and exploratory tasks for careers in:

• Agriculture
• Human Services
• … and ten others
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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

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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Exploring Career Paths: A Guide for Middle Schoolers (and The People Who Care About Them)

Middle school is often called “the finding place.” No, we don’t mean finally finding that lost homework assignment that disappeared in your locker weeks ago! What we do mean is that the middle grades are the perfect time to find, well…you! It’s a time for self-discovery, a perfect opportunity to start to define the ‘you’ you will become as an adult by exploring what makes you tick and what makes you special. You may have noticed that not only is your body changing, but so is the way you see the world – and you’re probably thinking more about where you fit into it. Your interests may be changing, or you may be curious about what’s out there that you’ve yet to discover. It’s such an exciting time as you start to construct and make plans for that future ‘you.’

That sounds like a lot. But don’t stress! Middle school should be all about trying new things, making and learning from mistakes, and gathering insights about who you are as a human being. It can be a little overwhelming, and that’s where playbooks like this one can be so helpful. We can all use some guidance when it comes to knowing yourself, your options, and how to make good decisions. Think of this as a roadmap as you start to think about what your future might hold and the values and skills you’re going to need to be successful.

So grab your roadmap and seize this opportunity! The templates we’ve included are jam-packed full of activities and materials to help you learn about yourself and think about your future. We hope you enjoy the journey and find the tools you need to carve your own path for the future.

Using the Playbook

This playbook is a collaboration of the Association for Middle Level Education, American Student Assistance, and Canva for Education. It is designed to be used in both the classroom and out-of-school settings and is provided free for all.

Tips for Educators

AMLE and ASA have teamed up with Canva to offer this Playbook as a series of interactive templates. Canva for Education is 100% free for K-12 teachers, schools, and districts. Canva provides helpful instructional videos on how to use these templates in your classroom.

The activity templates have been presented for use as a series in three parts, each building on the previous part/activities. However, they have been designed to be used as stand-alone activities depending on your curricular/advisory program needs. Below you’ll see that each activity template is linked directly to Canva. If you prefer to explore all of the templates on your own, you can do so here .

We recommend that educators/school leadership teams also review the Career Exploration in the Middle Grades: Playbook for Educators for best practices, templates, and resources for introducing career exploration to tweens/teens.

Playbook Tips for Families and Tweens/Teens

The Playbook is a great resource to support families support their children in exploring their future options, or tweens/teens to use independently. Canva has a basic, free version for individuals. Alternatively, your tween/teen may also get access to Canva for Education by invitation from their teacher. Upon creating an account, you’ll have complimentary access to all of the activity templates included in the Playbook. If you’re new to Canva, you may consider exploring Canva’s free tutorials .

Below you’ll see that each activity template is linked directly to Canva. If you prefer to explore all of the templates on your own, you can do so here . You may choose to go through each part and activity template in order, as presented here in the Playbook. However, each activity has been designed to be able to be used independently based on your individual needs.

Part 1: Knowing Yourself

Let’s start with talking about your identity. “Who are you?” seems like such a simple question, but it can be one of the most difficult ones out there. It’s something most other middle schoolers are concerned about, and even most adults are trying to figure out! This is a question that takes a lifetime to fully answer. Even as we get older, the answer is always changing as we learn new things and grow. Learning about yourself is one of those things that is really hard to explain, but before you can think of your future, you need to know yourself in the present – all of the things that make you, you!

Part 1 Activity Templates

Identity Circles

An “identity circle” can help us figure out what shapes and influences us. It shows how different parts of who we are, like our gender, culture, and interests, all come together to make us who we are.

Exploring Your Values

Values are the things people believe are most important in life. Values can influence our decisions and guide us in determining our priorities. We often get our values from our family and the society in which we live, so to begin thinking about your own values, it’s helpful to first think about the values of those around you.

Skill Building

We all have things that we believe we are good at and enjoy doing, and others that we don’t feel as good at. Your skills and abilities can show up in the classes you enjoy, the extracurriculars you participate in, or how you generally think about your strengths. RIASEC helps classify people and jobs into six categories: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising and Conventional. It is designed to help you learn which of the six areas tend to relate to your natural abilities, strengths, and skills.

Identifying Your Network

You can think of all of the people that share a relationship with you as part of your network. Whether it may be in school, doctor visits or extracurricular activities, your network is formed by all of the relationships that you make throughout your life, and they can help you set and achieve your goals for your future. Let’s explore and better understand your personal and professional networks.

Part 2: Knowing Your Options

The question of “who are you?” is a hard one and can take a lifetime to answer, but there can be a lot of other questions that can be just as hard. “What do you want to do with your future?,” “What is your dream job?,” and of course “What do you want to be when you grow up?” seem to come up both at school and at home. All of these career questions ask you to think about things that can seem big, scary, or far away.

When talking with adults, it can seem like they are always asking what career you want to pursue. It is totally okay to not have a good answer! Middle school is about exploring careers and interests, and learning about as much as possible.Whether you have no clue about what you want to do or you have always known your dream job, these activities can help you learn about all of the available career options.

Career exploration is the process of learning about different careers and thinking about how they fit with your interests and skills. Sometimes, career exploration can be as simple as asking yourself questions like:

• What careers have I heard about that I might be interested in?
• How do my current classes, hobbies, and activities align with the careers that I am interested in?
• What can I do to learn more about the careers that interest me?

The activities in Part 1 had you spending a lot of time thinking about your sense of self. Try to keep your identity, values, and skills in mind as you explore different options for career paths. Your knowledge of yourself can help you search for careers that would be a good fit for you!

Part 2 Activity Templates

Exploring Durable Skills

Durable skills are general abilities that apply to anyone in any stage of life, whether that be middle school, high school, or even adults already in the workforce. These skills are valuable at all stages of life and include things like communication, working well with others, or being creative.

Career Clusters

A career cluster is a group of careers that share similar features. There are 16 clusters total, and they span a wide range of different career paths and include (almost!) every career path you can think of. Let’s learn about the different clusters and think about which ones we might be interested in.

ASA Futurescapes

Ready to game? This tool can help you find careers that you might be interested in. You’ll just complete the short game to find a universe of potential future careers, all orbiting around skills you are good at.

Career Exploration Recipe Cards

This activity guides you through career exploration research. Research can also be a scary word, but it just means the investigation of a certain topic. In this case, we will be researching a career path.

Part 3: Making Informed Decisions & Taking Action

We often talk about careers starting after high school or postsecondary education and/or training, but as you’ve seen in this playbook, every activity that you complete, every skill that you develop, and every lesson that you learn is helping you along your future career path. Even though your career feels far away, starting your career exploration journey has given you so much more time to think about your options, set your goals, and work towards achieving them. So congratulations to you. Give yourself a pat on the back!

Lets bring these ideas together so you can continue to develop your own personalized plan for your career exploration journey. Making Informed Decisions & Taking Action means:

1). understanding your options

2). communicating your decisions to others

You already know more about yourself and the types of careers that you might be interested in; now let’s use that knowledge to take action and make some decisions!

Part 3 Activity Templates

Making Informed Decisions & Taking Action

Before diving into big decisions, it’s handy to have a few strategies up your sleeve. A quick checklist and reflection can help guide you.

Communication Styles

Good communication helps us share the reasoning behind our decisions with others, and ensure everybody feels like their voice is heard. Let’s get you more familiar with the four different styles of communications.

Self-Advocacy

Communicating effectively means you are able to advocate for yourself: you’re able to explain your reasoning to others in a respectful way that allows you to feel truly understood. Another word for this is self-advocacy. Self-advocacy is more than just being able to speak our mind: it is truly understanding ourselves and using that knowledge to grow and become better every day.

Self-Advocacy – My Album

Throughout this playbook, we have talked a lot about the concept of identity, or who we are, as well as how we see our identities connecting to our visions for our futures. What does that connection really look like? We can look at the work of some of our favorite musical artists to see!

Stress Management – Emptying Your Cup

Sometimes, thinking about big decisions, communicating with those we care about or needing to overcome difficult situations can make us feel anxious or overwhelmed. Stress is our body’s response to pressure, and it can feel like mental or physical tension in your body. You can think of stress like pouring water into a cup. The things that add stress to your life pour into the cup, and it’s important to find ways to empty the cup!

When we think about ways to manage our stress, many of them actually fall under the umbrella of self-care. Let’s think about ways that self care can make us grow and flower into the people that we want to be.

Building Your Professional Networks – Informational Interviews

It can be easy to find facts about careers online, but it can be a lot harder to know what it is actually like to be in a career. To learn more about what it’s like to work in a particular job, it can be helpful to schedule an informational interview. An informational interview is a formal conversation where you ask somebody about their career.

You’re Well On Your Way!

You have done such a great job on these activities, and we know that the skills that you’ve gained will help you in any career that you choose to pursue.

Throughout this playbook, you’ve learned about:

• your identities
• your interests & values
• exploring different career options and the paths that we can take to get there
• practicing how to use different communication styles and take initiative
• ways to manage stress

Now that you’ve learned so much more about yourself and the career options available to you, no matter what career you choose, the skills that you have developed will make you successful!

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20 Career Activities for Middle School Students

• Career Readiness

In today’s competitive world, it’s essential to start early when preparing students for their future careers. Middle schoolers may not know exactly what they want to be when they grow up, but engaging them in career-focused activities can open doors and encourage them to explore their interests. Here are 20 career activities that middle school students can participate in to learn more about themselves and the job market.

1. Career Interest Inventories: These surveys help students identify their interests and match them with potential careers.

2. Job Shadowing: Through job shadowing experiences, middle schoolers can observe professionals at work and gain firsthand knowledge of various occupations.

3. Career Day: Organize a career day at school, featuring guest speakers from various fields who can discuss their jobs and offer advice.

4. Field Trips: Arrange field trips to local businesses or organizations to give students a closer look at various industries.

5. Vision Board Activity: Have students create vision boards with images, words, or phrases representing their desired careers or career goals.

6. Resume Writing Workshop: Teach essential resume-writing skills that students will need in the future.

7. Mock Interviews: Conduct realistic mock interviews so students can practice and improve their interviewing skills.

8. Entrepreneurship Projects: Encourage middle schoolers to develop their entrepreneurial spirit by creating small businesses or participating in entrepreneurship competitions.

9. Volunteer Work: Organizing volunteer opportunities allows students to gain valuable experience while giving back to the community.

10. Career Research Projects: Assign research projects that encourage students to explore different careers and gather information on education requirements, job outlooks, and salary expectations.

11. Internships: Middle schoolers may be eligible for internships in certain industries or with local organizations, providing valuable work experience.

12. Networking Events: Host networking events where students can meet professionals from various fields and create connections that could benefit them in the future.

13. Career Aptitude Tests: Utilize career aptitude tests to recommend specific jobs or industries that align well with each student’s skills and interests.

14. Extracurricular Activities: Encourage middle schoolers to participate in clubs or organizations that relate to their career interests.

15. Goal-setting Activities: Discuss the importance of setting clear, achievable goals and help students create a plan of action for their future.

16. Team-building Exercises: Develop their communication and cooperation skills through fun teamwork activities.

17. STEAM Programs: Support and promote Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) programs to provide hands-on learning experiences related to potential careers.

18. Classroom Guest Speakers: Invite professionals from various fields to speak about their careers and share personal success stories.

19. Speed Networking Events: Organize events where students can interact with professionals from multiple industries in quick succession, gathering information on a wide range of career options.

20. College Preparation Workshops: Educate students about the college application process and offer guidance on choosing future courses or majors aligned with their career goals.

By engaging middle school students in these 20 career activities, educators can help them build crucial skills and discover where their passions lie, setting the stage for a successful future.

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