In March, Heatly teacher Mrs. Hilario organized a career research project for her fourth-grade students. The project comprised two components: a career pen pal exchange and a career day presentation.
Over the past few weeks, fourth-grade students have been communicating with professionals to collect information about various careers. Students were matched with professionals representing diverse careers, including a mechanical engineer, police officer, history teacher, realtor, advertiser, music director, Minecraft video game developer, nurse, flight attendant, and law student. Students used information they collected to build presentations about their desired career paths.
On March 14, the students hosted their career day presentations in the library, where students from kindergarten through fifth grade learned about the career choices of the fourth graders.
Presentations varied, from a future registered nurse’s diorama to a 3-panel presentation by two aspiring actors, and a memorabilia-laden display by a future NASCAR driver. Additionally, three future police officers delivered a PowerPoint presentation. Most of the presentations included costumes.
Noah Minor, a future doctor, expressed his excitement for the presentation, stating, “Doctors can earn over $200,000 while helping people.”
The three future police officers—Joey, James, and Skye—collaborated on their presentation, sharing, “This presentation took over five days to create. We researched the duties of officers, the qualifications needed, and decided if this career was right for us.”
Reese, a future baseball player, shared baseball facts and statistics, highlighting that players typically work an average of eight hours per day, seven days per week, and do not require a high school diploma.
Parents attended the presentations at the end of the day, and were thrilled to learn more about each student’s chosen career.
