Careers in Geography - Careers Cards
Using Careers Cards in Geography Lessons
This page contains real examples of people who have geography qualifications and use them to some extent in their careers.
The 'Careers Cards' downloads can be adapted by adding additional information or organisation logos, or you can create your own from scratch.
You can use them in a variety of ways during geography lessons:
- Card sorts - questions such as 'which of these jobs do you think are relevant to our next topic?' get students thinking about the connections between geographical topics and careers. Economic regeneration, climate change, natural disasters, meteorology... all have a variety of career links.
- Thinking geographically - students pick a job and discuss how thinking geographically can help as part of the skill set this person uses.
- Option evening - the cards could form a quick and easy way of demonstrating a variety of geography-related careers to students and parents.
- Plenary activities or starters - talking about a particular career for five minutes is a quick and appealing way to talk about the relevance of geography and drip-feed careers information to your students throughout KS3.
Careers Cards
Six brief career profiles are shown below - these are all available to download as full Careers Cards, both as a printable PDF and as a Word document for you to adapt.
Download: Careers Cards - Full Set (PDF)
Download: Careers Cards - Full Set (Word)
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Fiona Campbell - Meteorologist I am a meteorologist with a passion for the environment and love of sailing. I currently work for the Carbon Trust as well as running my own marine meteorology business, Skye Weather Ltd. and working with Skandia Team GBR. I am now a consultant meteorologist for UK sport, providing information for the British Olympic sailing teams for Beijing 2008 and London 2012. |
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Andy Dare - Chartered Hydrographic Surveyor I'm responsible for positioning things in the right place under the sea. I receive the location co-ordinates of where the object needs to be positioned and then produce online navigation information for the positioning vessels. In the photograph I am in Singapore doing a pipeline inspection. We travelled the length of the pipeline videoing it and checking for damage. |
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Amy Wright - Environmental Education Officer I oversee the schools programme at Skelton Grange Environment Centre in Leeds. Primary school children come along to take part in environmental activities in the Centre and the surrounding wildlife area. Every day is different. In any one day I could be teaching children to pond dip, grow vegetables, become human food chains and hunt for minibeasts in the woods! |
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Dr Andrew Marshall - Climate Scientist I work at the Met Office where I assess how the accuracy of weather forecasts for the next season is affected by how well the stratosphere is represented in the computer model of the climate system we use to make forecasts. I used to work for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and went on trips to investigate the summer monsoon. I also gave weather lessons in primary schools. |
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Debbie Baxter - Surveyor I work on all areas of surveying, from simple things like levelling and traversing, to topographical and building surveys, monitoring and construction. My job is challenging but it's also rewarding. I get to meet a variety of people and work all over the country. My skills and confidence grow with each job and I'm even considering doing a degree in surveying in the future. |
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Helen Johnson - Researcher/Lecturer I am a researcher and lecturer at Oxford University where I work on ocean circulation and its role in the climate. I work with computer models and theory and also spend a lot of time at sea on research ships and icebreakers to collect observations of the ocean, in particular west of Greenland. It was the Force 8 gale I experienced while sailing across the North Sea that inspired me to study meteorology! |
Thanks to the Royal Meteorological Society for permission to publish the information about Fiona, Andrew and Helen. More career profiles can be found on the RMetS website.
Career Interviews
You could choose to present career profiles in a slightly different format, perhaps as a factfile or interview. Or you could show students newspaper/magazine articles such as 'Lofty climbs of the Lake District weatherman' (Guardian 18.03.10) or even design your own.
A potential homework activity could be to ask students to create a career profile or write an article about a fictional person in a job that they consider to be geographical, thinking about typical duties, qualifications and background experience.
This interview with Alison Cook of the British Antarctic Survey could act as a template.
Download: Career Interview Sample (PDF)
Download: Career Interview Sample (Word)
RGS-IBG Career Profiles
The Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers) has produced a series of Career Profile PDFs in which geography graduates talk about their jobs and how they use the skills geography has given them in their careers.
The Career Profiles cover a broad range of jobs including Weather Forecaster, Risk Manager, GIS Software Developer and Film Director, and could be printed off for use as additional Careers Cards.
Guess the Job
Another idea for getting students thinking about geographical careers is to display a 'mystery' photograph and see if they can work out what the job is.
This photograph is a good example. What is this man doing? Why? What will he produce? How? Answer - he's a surveyor tracking utility services to produce a GIS layer! How many of your students guessed the correct answer?
Statutory Guidance for Impartial Careers Education
These activities will contribute to the following learning outcomes:
Students...
2.3 understand the skills and qualifications they need to pursue their ambitions
3.3 understand the opportunities for progression to further learning afforded by each course/pathway, including to Higher Education
4.1 have been positively challenged to consider opportunities that they may not otherwise have considered
5.1 are able to recognise and challenge stereotypical views of opportunities in learning and work
6.1 understand the relevance to their future lives of each part of the curriculum
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