Connect Your Students to Careers in Your Community

Career Blade provides easy-to-use, classroom-ready lesson plans that introduce students of all ages to the types of careers that are available in your local area. These lesson plans include activities that practice core academic skills in the context of the jobs that local employers will have in the future.

These lesson plans are customized for teachers’ needs based on student age range and industry. This links local careers to subjects that are typically taught in classrooms.

Lesson plans are available for 3 different age brackets: Elementary Grades, Middle Grades, and High School. They highlight the high-demand careers and will integrate the relevant academic standards. Lessons will be categorized by career, industry, and the methods for company-in-classroom opportunities.

Each lesson includes:

Career name and description
Lesson Plan for hands-on or creative thinking problem-solving
Career Connection illustrating how the lesson connects to the career
Local Connections featuring regional employers that hire this type of career
Academic Standards Alignment with answer key and/or teacher rubric

Lesson Plans By Industry

Advanced Manufacturing

Career: Industrial Maintenance Technician

Industrial Maintenance Technicians help to make sure that machines and factories operate safely and efficiently.

Lessons plans:

Career: Production Manager/Clerk

Industrial production managers oversee the daily operations of manufacturing and related plants. Product design, product development, and managing resources materials, employee training, and setting up an assembly line are all components of this position.

Lessons plans:

Agriculture

Career: Farmer/Rancher

Plan, direct, or coordinate the management or operation of farms, ranches, greenhouses, aquacultural operations, nurseries, timber tracts, or other agricultural establishments. May hire, train, and supervise farm workers or contract for services to carry out the day-to-day activities of the managed operation. May engage in or supervise planting, cultivating, harvesting, and financial and marketing activities.

Lessons plans:

Automotive

Career: CNC Operator/ Machinist

Computer Numeric Control (CNC) Operators/Machinists set up and operate a variety of computer-controlled and mechanically controlled machine tools to produce precision metal, plastic, and other materials to make parts, instruments, and tools. Computer numeric controlled equipment is precision machinery that cuts, grinds, or drills into the material.

Lessons plans:

Financial Services

Career: Financial Analyst/Loan Officer

A Financial Analyst can help individuals and companies in many aspects of money, including investing money to make more money and evaluating trends. Financial analysts are also responsible for tracking a company’s financial situation.

Lessons plans:

Construction

Career: Electrician

Electricians install, maintain and repair electrical wiring, equipment and fixtures. Electricians ensure that work is in accordance with relevant codes. They also install and service main power sources, home systems, and business and industry electrical control systems.

Lessons plans:

Career: Welder

Welders, Cutters, and Welder Fitters use hand-welding or flame-cutting equipment to weld or join metal components or to fill holes, indentations, or seams of fabricated metal products.

Lessons plans:

Digital Technology

Career: Database Administrator

A Database Administrator is a in career the Information Technology industry that uses specialized software to store and organize data, perform capacity planning, installation, configuration, database design, migration, performance monitoring, data security, troubleshooting, and data backup and recovery.

Lessons plans:

Career: Computer Programmer

Computer Programmers develop code that allow computers to do what we want them to. Programmers work from instructions written by software developers or other individuals.

Lessons plans:

Career: Data Scientist

Data scientist use scientific methods, processes, algorithms, and computer systems to extract knowledge and insights from data. Data scientist prepare data for analysis, analyze data, and present findings to inform high-level decisions in an organization. Data scientist incorporate skills from computer science, mathematics, statistics, information visualization, graphic design, and business. Data science is also referred to as data mining and big data.

Lessons plans:

Career: Information Security Analyst

Information Security Analysts plan and carry out security measures to protect an organization’s computer networks and systems. Their responsibilities are continually expanding as the number of cyberattacks increases.

Lessons plans:

Health & Human Services

Career: Nurse

Nurses are usually the first health professional that checks in the patients’ and reviews their health problems and needs and prepares the medical records for the doctors. They also monitor patients’ vital signs, administer medications, advise on health maintenance and disease prevention.

Lessons plans:

Marketing & Sales

Career: Marketing Manager

Marketing managers lead teams that use market knowledge and data analysis to estimate how much of a product consumers want, and to identify new markets for a clients’ products.

Lessons plans:

Supply Chain & Transportation

Career: Supply Chain Analyst

Supply chain analysts analyze and coordinate an organization’s supply chain—the system that moves a product from supplier to consumer. They manage the entire life cycle of a product, which includes how a product is acquired, allocated, and delivered.

Lessons plans:

Career: Truck Driver

Truck drivers deliver goods and materials to and from manufacturers and suppliers to stores, companies, and other customers. Most are long-haul drivers with routes spanning several states, though some cover local routes only.

Lessons plans:

For Businesses

Connect Your Business to Your Future Workforce

Career Blade provides a way to help excite your future local workforce about the jobs that you will need to fill in the future. Your future workforce is today’s students, but if these students do not know about the careers that your business offers, then they will not see themselves working for you in the future.

Career Blade helps to solve this problem by getting your careers and your business’ name in front of current students. Students work through lessons that introduce exciting aspects of the careers that you employ. At the end of the lessons, students learn about your company and the opportunities that you offer.

Career Blade increases student awareness of local businesses and employment opportunities while sparking their interest in filling the needs of the workforce of the future.

About Us

We Help Students Visualize Careers in Your Community

As employers across the state continue to project a shortage of qualified workers, the state identified the need for a new system that will make career awareness and preparation more seamless for students, parents, employers and educators. The state envisioned Career Blade for educators that shows localized, career-focused pathways for students in middle and high school.

Teachers will be able to download classroom-ready, age-appropriate lesson plans that illustrate the tasks common to careers that local businesses desire, and then link to actual local businesses near the specific school allowing more students to identify high-demand career paths that tie to new economy jobs, thereby preventing a shortage of qualified workers.

Career Blade is offered to all schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, and Tennessee. Partners at local Chambers, employers and schools will benefit from aggregated experience and expertise across the State for the implementation of strategies, systems and resources that improve school-to-career transitions for all students.