Green 360 Career Catalyst
Educator Guide
Green 360 Career Catalyst provides students with tools, information, and experiences to help them make informed education and career choices. It is more than just an experience with an online career exploration tool. Green 360 collaborates with organizations toward a common goal of helping students inform and prepare themselves to pursue education, training, and career opportunities that contribute to our sustainable future.
How to Use the Educator Resources
This guide provides the educator (or facilitator) of the Career Catalyst the important context to the Career Catalyst throughout the student experience. The first lesson — Getting Started with the Career Catalyst — introduces students to the career exploration process. It sets the stage for students to care about their future and realize creating that future is a thoughtful process comprised of many facets. Students gain an understanding of why learning about themselves (interests, strengths, and skills) will help them make informed education and career choices and discover their career direction.
After completing the Getting Started lesson, your students are ready to begin the Career Catalyst. Each student will need a computer, email address, and password. Students register to use the Career Catalyst after which they receive a confirmation email from Green 360. Their userid (email address) and password will remain in the Career Catalyst system. The information they gather about themselves and their interests for their futures will remain online in their Portfolio. Students can access the Career Catalyst at any time.
The Career Catalyst is divided into two learning centers: Know Yourself and Connect with Others. Each center has several activities to engage students in learning more about themselves, their community, and how to move forward in deciding a career direction. Educator lesson plans and activities accompany both learning centers.
Know Yourself Learning Center
Know Yourself features four learning activities:
- Discover Your Interests
- Connect to Your World
- Career Profiles
- Make a Statement
Educators have two options to guide students through the Know Yourself Learning Center.
Option 1: Teacher-Guided Lessons.
Educators guide students through the first four activities by using the lesson plans associated with each activity. The advantage of completing the Know Yourself lessons before each activity is to provide context and student connections to your subject area as they progress. Educators also have the opportunity to learn about their students as those students learn about themselves and each other.
Option 2: Independently-Completed Student Lessons plus Enrichment.
Educators instruct students to use the Career Catalyst independently to complete the four Know Yourself learning activities. Then the educator can revisit the Know Yourself Learning Center using the Diving Deeper Enrichment Activities lesson. Each enrichment activity is 15-30 minutes. The advantage of this approach is that it requires students to reflect/revisit/revise each activity to strengthen their interactive responses.
Connect with Others Learning Center
- Career Talk
- Build Your Network
- Informational Interview
The Connect with Others Learning Center uses the information students gained about themselves and applies it to enable students to learn more about their career choice(s). Students learn that people are the most important source of information, guidance, and support. In Career Talk, students begin by having informal conversations with an adult. Next, they create a Network Map — a diagram of potential contacts that represents the people they know and meet who can help them. In the Informational Interview, students watch two complementary videos about how to create a positive mindset before an Informational Interview and how to conduct their own Informational Interview. There are lessons connected to each learning center activity.
Before You Begin
Before you engage your students in the Career Catalyst, it is important to realize and communicate the benefits of completing each activity in the Career Catalyst. Explain why gaining knowledge about themselves — their interests, strengths, and skills — will help students make informed education and career choices. By completing the entire Career Catalyst yourself, you can inspire your students by sharing your interests, environmental connections, and Changemaker Statement with your students.
Getting Started with the Career Catalyst
This introductory lesson — Getting Started with the Career Catalyst — is for both the educator and the students. It sets the stage for putting students in the driver’s seat to make informed choices about their future. (45 minutes)
Career exploration is a multi-step process that begins in adolescence and continues well into adulthood. While some students may determine their career direction at an early age, it takes others their entire lives to decide a career path they love. The key to determining the career direction for students starts with identifying personal interests, strengths, and skills. This lesson lays the foundation for career exploration.
Know Yourself Learning Center
Knowing interests, strengths, and skills is a major step in determining a student’s career direction. Know Yourself begins with students completing an Interest Profiler.
- Discover Your Interests
The Interest Profiler is a quick survey that helps students discover how personality traits and interest types relate to work activities performed in many careers. At the end of the survey, students receive results: their top three interest types. Based on the results, students select descriptors with which they resonate. Next, they begin to answer the question: What do my interests tell me about who I am? They complete “I am, I can, I like” interest sentences.
Option 1: Teacher-Guided Lessons.
Use the Know Yourself: Interest Profiler/Interest Results lesson plan to guide your students to complete this activity. (Day 1, 50-60 minutes; Day 2, 50 minutes)
Option 2: Independently-Completed Student Lessons plus Enrichment.
Using the Career Catalyst, students work independently, at their own pace, to complete all the learning activities in the Know Yourself Learning Center. Students complete the activities in sequence: 1. Discover Your Interests (Interest Profiler, Interest Results, Interest Sentences), 2. Connect to Your World, 3. Career Profiles, and 4. Make a Statement. Upon completion, use the Diving Deeper Enrichment Activities lesson to strengthen students’ insights about themselves and their career direction.
- Connect to Your World
The Interest Profiler is a quick survey that helps students discover how personality traits and interest types relate to work activities performed in many careers. At the end of the survey, students receive results: their top three interest types. Based on the results, students select descriptors with which they resonate. Next, they begin to answer the question: What do my interests tell me about who I am? They complete “I am, I can, I like” interest sentences.
Option 1: Teacher-Guided Lessons.
Use the Know Yourself: Interest Profiler/Interest Results lesson plan to guide your students to complete this activity. (Day 1, 50-60 minutes; Day 2, 50 minutes)
Option 2: Independently-Completed Student Lessons plus Enrichment.
Using the Career Catalyst, students work independently, at their own pace, to complete all the learning activities in the Know Yourself Learning Center. Students complete the activities in sequence: 1. Discover Your Interests (Interest Profiler, Interest Results, Interest Sentences), 2. Connect to Your World, 3. Career Profiles, and 4. Make a Statement. Upon completion, use the Diving Deeper Enrichment Activities lesson to strengthen students’ insights about themselves and their career direction.
- Career Profiles
Career Profiles uses the results from the Interest Profiler and Connect to Your World to provide a “best match” that allows students to explore how their interests and selected Environmental Challenge(s) can provide direction towards their future career. The Career Profiles Database suggests potentially suitable careers.
Option 1: Teacher-Guided Lessons.
Use the Know Yourself: Career Profile lesson plan to guide students to complete this activity. (45-55 minutes)
Option 2: Independently-Completed Student Lessons plus Enrichment.
Have students continue to complete all four Know Yourself learning activities. Upon completion, use the Diving Deeper Enrichment Activities to strengthen students’ insights about themselves and their career direction.
- Changemaker Statement
The Changemaker Statement describes interests, strengths, goals, (possible careers), and selected Environmental Challenges. This statement is the response to the request, “Tell me about yourself,” when connecting with others. Students can use their statement in conversations with adults about education and career options, in interviews for internships, and in college and job applications.
Option 1: Teacher-Guided Lessons.
Use the Know Yourself: Make a Statement lesson plan (50 minutes) to guide students to complete this activity.
Option 2: Independently-Completed Student Lessons plus Enrichment.
Have students continue to complete all four Know Yourself learning activities. Upon completion, use the Diving Deeper Enrichment Activities to strengthen students’ insights about themselves and their career direction.
Connect with Others Learning Center
In Connect with Others, students have a playbook of three activities. These activities allow the student to develop key skills needed to build a network of people — their champions — to help them reach their goals.
All lessons in Connect with Others are teacher-guided lessons.
- Career Talk
The Career Talk activity provides the Career Talk Guide to help students have an informal discussion with an adult — like a parent — that helps them acquire the guidance needed to achieve their career exploration goal. This discussion will occur outside of the classroom.
Option 1: Teacher-Guided Lessons.
Use the Connect with Others: Career Talk lesson plan to guide students to complete this activity. (55 minutes)
- Build Your Network
This activity, which focuses on networking, guides students to think about how they can connect with people who can help them learn more about their interests and explore careers. Students create a Network Map.
Option 1: Teacher-Guided Lessons.
Use the Connect with Others: Build Your Network lesson plan to guide students to complete this activity. (35 minutes)
- Informational Interview
The Informational Interview activity shows students how to conduct an Informational Interview — a brief conversation with a professional where the student asks them questions about their career experiences. Students use an Informational Interview Guide to prepare for in-class peer interviews as well as professional Informational Interviews outside the classroom.
Option 1: Teacher-Guided Lessons.
Engage students (grades 10–12) with peer interviewing as described in the Connect with Others: Informational Interview lesson plan. Show students two videos at the start of this activity. The first (4 Tips to Rock Informational Interviews) focuses on preparing for an interview and the second (Successful Informational Interview) focuses on a etiquette during an interview. (20-30 minutes)