Go back to My K-8 GuideEa
ch student page in PLT’s Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide includes a Career Corner that introduces students to a forest-related career. Brief text describes the career and its connection to the student page content or skills. We encourage you to use these Career Corners to acquaint your students to the many green career possibilities. Download the complete set of Career Corners to use with your students.
DOWNLOAD HERE
Today’s youth, more than ever, seek rewarding careers that will help the world move toward more sustainable lifestyles and greener economies. They want to find a job they can be proud of, and they want to feel like they are making a difference in the world.
Forestry workers often find deep satisfaction as their jobs help to sustain forest ecosystems and ensure that the forest products we rely on are produced in the most sustainable way possible, ensuring that wildlife habitat is conserved, trees are replanted, and workers are treated equitably.
There is a wide array of jobs related to trees and forests, offering interesting and meaningful opportunities for people with diverse backgrounds, skills, interest areas, and personal qualities. We have aimed to include a sampling of this variety in the Career Corners.
To make the most of the Career Corners, try one or more of the following.
Ideas for Career Exploration
- Provide students with the complete set of Career Corners suitable for their grade range. Have them sort the cards by different skills, content areas, or personal qualities, or by whether they are STEM-focused.
- Ask students to choose one of the careers to research. Have them find out what skills, characteristics, and training would be required to do this job, and write a brief report about the career. They should include whether they would be interested in pursuing this career and why or why not.
- Invite guests who work in the forest sector or other environment-related careers to speak to your group about the work they do. Encourage youth to practice informational interviewing skills with guests.
- Encourage students to write a story about a person in a green career. The story might include something about the person’s background or personal qualities, and a challenge the person faces in their work.
- Lead students in the activity My Green Future in Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide. (See pages 132-135.)
Ideas for Skills Building
- Using the complete set of Career Corners as a starting point, encourage students to identify what skills forestry professionals require to conduct their jobs successfully, the corresponding skills students have, and which skills they might like to grow in their own career development.
- Challenge students to identify other careers that use some or all of those skills. The careers may or may not be related to forests.
- Give students practice using forestry-related skills by leading students in one or more of the following activities in Explore Your Environment: K-8 Activity Guide:
| Grades K-2 | Grades 3-5 | Grades 6-8 |
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Ideas for Reflection & Self-Assessment
- Invite students to complete PLT’s “Ten STEM Skills for Everyone,” which can help them determine their strengths (link to myK8guide download).
- Have students take PLT’s “Find Your Green Jobs Quiz,” which helps students identify green jobs that might fit their personality type {insert link}.
- Invite students to visit PLT’s “Explore Green Jobs” webpage at https://www.plt.org/workingforforests for more information and resources.
Please share additional ideas for using Career Corners by submitting them to plt@forests.org.