The aim of Career and Work Exploration is to provide students with opportunities to develop and enhance the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to acquire awareness, to access information, and to understand and positively influence their own life career development. Students will be able to expand their awareness, to explore and to experience various work roles through work-based learning experiences.

The goals of Career Work Exploration allow students to learn about work and occupational career choices through work-based learning experiences.

Decision making: To develop the ability to assess situations and confidently make decisions.

Life-Long Learning: To adapt to the changing employment patterns.

Personal Growth: To identify personal goals.

Career Awareness: To appreciate the diversity and breadth of career development opportunities.

Transferable Skills Development: To identify and learn transferable skills in the classroom and apply them to a work-based learning environment.

Personal Accountability: To foster a sense of commitment and responsibility in a workplace.

Exploration: To explore a wide range of career development opportunities through related work experiences.

Experience: To take advantage of work-based learning to gain experience to support effective transitions.

Career and Work Exploration builds on Career Guidance: A Curriculum Guide for the Middle Level (1995) in its belief that career development is a life-long process, and that a comprehensive career development program in all schools is an important strategy for assisting youth with school and work transitions. Career and Work Exploration aims to assist students to understand themselves, identify their unique skills and abilities, and make decisions based on occupational choices through work-based learning.

Career and Work Exploration contributes to the career development of Secondary Level students. It complements other courses such as: Entrepreneurship 30, Life Transitions 20, 30, and Wellness 10. The career exploration modules in Practical and Applied Arts curricula are supported by this guide, as are the continued integration and articulation of career development concepts into all Saskatchewan Education curricula. Many of those concepts are introduced here.

Foundational Objectives are the major, general statements that guide what each student is expected to achieve for the modules of the curriculum. Foundational objectives indicate the most important knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and abilities for a student to learn in a subject.

• To understand and practise the principles of the career development continuum: career awareness, career exploration and career experience.
• To interact positively and effectively with others.
• To respond to change and growth as it relates to career decision making and career planning.
• To participate in life-long learning supportive of career goals.
• To locate and use career and work information.
• To understand the relationships among work, society and the economy.
• To secure, create and maintain work placements in a safe and healthy work environment.
• To make career enhancing decisions.
• To maintain balanced life and work roles.
• To recognize that career, work and life are distinct, but not separate.
• To understand the necessity of analyzing work environments for safety.
• To be aware of career development opportunities that exist in Saskatchewan and other provinces.
• To integrate classroom learning with work-based learning.
• To increase awareness of employability skills as they relate to the work environment.
• To understand, engage in and manage the car4eer building process.
• To develop a responsible attitude toward work experiences in a work environment.
• To understand the changing nature of life, work and career goals.

The Blueprint for Life/Work Designs provides a scope and sequence of career development competencies at four levels based on age and grade level. Level One is targeted at an Elementary Level audience; Level Two at a Middle Level audience; Level Three at a Secondary Level audience; and, Level Four at an adult audience. Saskatchewan Learning has adopted this scope and sequence as the list of career development competencies to be integrated across Core Curriculum and from Kindergarten through grade 12.

Career and Work Exploration 10, 20, A30, B30 is a non-prerequisite series of courses that blends theory-based and experiential learning components in a career development continuum of awareness, exploration and experience. Students access the community as a learning environment and thereby enhance their opportunities for career life success.

The curriculum promotes career planning and decision making. The curriculum is not intended to force students to make premature choices. It aims at helping students expand their occupational awareness and relate their educational choices to career development.

This 100-hour, one-credit course may consist of 40 to 60 hours of classroom learning and 40 to 60 hours of workplace learning. It offers students an opportunity to access career development information in school and in the workplace. Students are introduced to career development. They participate in a variety of self-awareness activities and instruments and gain valuable experiences both in and out of the classroom. Career awareness is the primary career development focus of this course.

This 100-hour, one-credit course consists of 30 to 50 hours of classroom learning and 50 to 70 hours of workplace learning. It provides students with an opportunity to explore career development as well as do some career planning. The career planning process is facilitated by a wide range of interactive activities and work experience components. The focus in Career and Work Exploration 20 is on the exploration stage of the career development continuum.

These 100-hour courses each consist of 25 to 30 hours of classroom learning and 70 to 75 hours of workplace learning. Career and Work Exploration A30 and B30 maximize opportunities for students to access the workplace. These courses offer opportunities for students to experience career choices and to develop entry level skills in a workplace setting.