Students investigate careers they see in the Imperial Valley and learn how local workers in agriculture, health care, education, law enforcement, restaurants, and IID support families, businesses, and the community. Through short research, collaborative discussion, visual source analysis, and interviews or guest speaker interactions, students connect local jobs to their own interests, strengths, and questions about the future. Over two weeks, they create and revise a career poster board and brief presentation that explain one community job, how it serves others, and why it may be a strong personal career match. The experience helps students practice communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and self-reflection while using feedback from peers during a gallery walk and final walkabout.

Students will research and compare Imperial Valley careers that interest them, using multiple print, digital, and visual sources to answer questions about how local jobs support families, businesses, and the community. They will practice collaborative discussion, active listening, and clear speaking as they interview or learn from community partners such as IID, agriculture, health care, education, restaurants, and law enforcement. Students will create and revise a career poster board and short presentation that connect one local job to their own interests, strengths, and community needs, using peer feedback from a gallery walk. They will reflect on compliments, questions, and revisions to show growth in communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and self-directed learning.

Students will create interest notes, question lists, and research sketches as they explore Imperial Valley careers through the Career Compass Kickoff and short source-based inquiry. Each student will produce a community careers poster board about one local job that includes visuals, facts from several sources, needed strengths and skills, and an explanation of how the job supports families, businesses, and the community. Students will also prepare a brief oral presentation using the poster board and visual data to share how the career connects to their own interests and strengths. After the Future Finder Expo and gallery walk, they will revise their boards using peer feedback and complete a short audio or video reflection describing one compliment, one question, and one change they made.

Begin with a Career Compass Kickoff using fast station rotations featuring photos, simple tools, maps, short video clips, and job artifacts from Imperial Valley careers such as agriculture, health care, law enforcement, education, IID, and local restaurants. At each station, students talk with partners and record which jobs interest them, what they notice about how the work helps families, businesses, and the community, and one question they want to research. End with a whole-class discussion where students build on each other’s ideas to name common interests, strengths, and community needs they noticed. Launch the project by introducing the challenge: choose one local career to investigate and create a poster board and short presentation for the Career Compass Walkabout.

Host a Career Compass Walkabout where students stand by their career poster boards and give short presentations about one Imperial Valley job, how it helps families, businesses, and the community, and why it matches their interests and strengths. Invite classmates, families, and, if possible, local partners from IID, restaurants, agriculture, health care, education, or law enforcement to rotate through the stations and ask questions. Build in a gallery walk with sticky notes so visitors leave one compliment and one question, then have students add a brief spoken, audio, or written reflection about what they learned and how they revised their board from peer feedback.