Free Lesson Plan: Learning About STEM Careers

Free STEM careers lesson plan: Teachers and Careers Leaders can help students and learners explore STEM careers they might enjoy.

STEM Careers Lesson Plan Overview

Students will research a range of careers linked to STEM subjects and present back to the class what information they have found.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will better be able to link the learning in the classroom to a range of careers they may be interested in
• Students will see how STEM subjects fit into so many careers and that with a good understanding of STEM subjects the world of work opens up to them.

Step By Step Guide

2 Minutes: Introduce Youth Employment UK to students

Youth Employment UK provides free membership called Young Professional to all 14-24 year olds in the UK. This membership is accessed online and helps young people to build up skills for life and work. It can be used virtually or in a classroom capacity.

In addition, Youth Employment UK has Career Guides with useful information about the world of work, careers, pathways, salary information, tips, advice and much more. Students are going to use these Career Guides today to learn more about the world of work, and to build their skills for making career choices, researching information and improving their job searching skills.

3 Minutes: Set the task

Tell students that they are going to research some careers via the Youth Employment UK Career Guides. In pairs or small groups they are to find a career where one needs to have a good understanding of one or more STEM subjects. Once they have chosen their career they are then going to research it and present what they find back to the class in a 1 minute presentation. They can use paper or IT-based presentation tools to do their presentation.

10 Minutes: Students make their career choices

Students can start making career choices by exploring the sectors in the Careers Hub. For the purposes of this lesson, they may be guided to Engineering & Manufacturing Careers, and Health & Science Careers. They may also be interested in Digital Careers.

25 minutes: Whilst researching their career, students prepare their presentation.

Ask them to present information such as – a description of that job, what it involves, what qualifications you need, what sectors the career features in, is there an apprenticeship option for this career, how much might you earn in this career, what lessons at school could be the most useful for this career and why?

15 minutes: Students deliver their presentations

You can support their confidence in this activity by asking them to read through these communication tips for giving a presentation.

Plenary

What have the students learnt about the world of work? Are there more careers that you need STEM subjects for than they thought there would be? Did anyone find a career they would like?

Teacher Notes

Suggested next steps

• Get students to register as Young Professional Members so that they can benefit from the additional support that Young Professional Members get
• Deliver the Young Professional assemblies to students to help them learn about the 5 core skills – Communication, team work, problem solving, self-belief and self-management
• Invite a professional from one of the careers you learnt about to come and talk to students
• Arrange a visit to a local employer where STEM is at the heart of their work

Additional Resources

Find an inspiring STEM speaker to come and talk to your students.

Work with your enterprise adviser to develop your business links in schools.

Final Notes

• Don’t forget to share this lesson plan and the Youth Employment UK resources with other colleagues.
• Take photos of the students completing this activity and share them on Twitter with us @YEUK2012 #careers.

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