Careers Final Project

Objective:

What’s your better idea? It’s easy to criticize; it’s harder to create. But this is your time to leave your mark.

How do you think we should balance the needs of people and nature? How can your future career help your vision become a reality?

Propose an idea that will help advance your career goals and your vision for balancing the needs of people and nature in your community or in our country.

Process:

You investigated why this class – why your future career – matters. You brainstormed a series of questions and then dug deeper. You took your research, decided on the one better question that must be answered and created a plan to do just that. Now it’s time to bring together everything you’ve learned and done. The answer to your better question is how you think we should balance the needs of people and nature. And that answer? It’s a specific idea that you will design to showcase your unique skills within your field of interest.

This project is about furthering your career goals, and demonstrating that what you do can be how you leave your mark. Your idea should be innovative – a new or improved product, service or campaign. Your approach can be entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial – design a start-up that answers your question or demonstrate how an existing company or organization can solve the problem. And your focus must be on developing an idea that can be implemented by your career of choice. Your final project is you test driving your future profession. It’s a living resume that showcases your ingenuity, skills and new-found experience. And, if you desire, your project is also a chance to advance your career goals by building connections and creating a pathway to your dream job.

Skill Development: 

creative thinking, research, organization, responsibility, leadership, time-management, independence, collaboration, critiquing, reviewing, communication, self-starting, self-regulation, critical thinking, citizenship, awesomeness

Final Product:

Using an entrepreneurial or intrapreneurial approach, you will research, design and pitch an innovative idea that answers your better question and will benefit your chosen career.

Research: Your better question will drive your research, and you will use the tools you’ve acquired in this class to uncover the answer. Search for inspiration and set your creativity loose, utilizing the Curated Library, your old-school library (either/or in your school or your community) and, of course, the Internet more broadly to focus your ideas within the parameters of the career you’re pursuing.

Design: Craft your idea and showcase what you’ve designed with a 10-12 slide presentation deck or a two page proposal. This should cover:

• your question and answer
• the case for why your idea solves or improves the problem or issue
• details on how your idea will work
• the research and evidence that backs your claims (properly referenced)
• required supporting information (financial data, market research, testimonials or endorsements, visual aids)
• the timeframe required to bring the idea to life
• budget requirements
• your request or ask (job, funding, investment)

Pitch: Work with your teacher to decide how you will present your idea. We recommend delivering a pitch-style presentation, a skill that will help if you intend to pursue your idea with a company, organization, funder or investor. And, of course, your slide deck or proposal will form the basis for your presentation.

This project can be for this class only, but if you come up with an idea that you believe has real merit, you can choose to pursue it, creating tangible connections and experiences that will benefit your future career.

Rubric:

Be sure to read and understand how you will be evaluated on your final project by your teacher.

Final Project Rubric

Resources:

In Case You Missed It: Why Nature?

Balancing the needs of people and nature is vague. We get that. And it’s intentional.

Why?

We didn’t have to pick nature – two bears – as our metaphor for the challenges we face or the lessons that must be taught. There are always other metaphors. There are always more pressing issues, more socially relevant issues. But for each of those issues – rightly or wrongly – we can’t always agree on right or wrong. Or even where to start.

But nature? We know that before we start debating the value of a park – and before we get into how best to, yes, balance people and nature – if we stop and really look at this?

We can all agree that this is beautiful.

By really stopping to appreciate this scene together, we can see that our natural inheritance is our common humanity. It is what makes us equal. It is what unites us.

Remember what we said when we started: it’s impossible for everyone to agree on how best to strengthen our economy or advance social justice or steward our natural environment. But by finding a common starting point – by using nature to move us away from what we disagree with and toward what we can agree on – we hope that we’ve helped you be more open to listening and learning from those you agree with and those you don’t. Even more importantly, we hope we’ve helped you reimagine what’s actually possible when we work together.

Just like our two bears.

That’s why this is Nature Labs and that’s why our challenge to you is to balance the needs of people and nature. It’s something absolutely critical and it’s a gateway to so much more.

So, what should balancing people and nature look like to you? No clue! And that’s the point. Even if nature is the metaphor – the lens – you can take this in any direction you want.

Maybe you think the best way of balancing people and nature is to ensure every Canadian has an affordable home, because it’s only with this type of security that our population can turn their attention to safeguarding biodiversity. That’s fair.

Maybe you believe that Indigenous and non-Indigenous members of your community need to gather and really listen to each other’s hopes and fears before trust can be built to work together to balance people and nature. Good idea.

Maybe you think the loss of a species in your region will cause a cascade-effect that will not only harm the ecosystem you call home, but will destroy the economic and cultural cornerstones that make this place a good home. For you, maybe you want to change development or recreational practices or protect habitat. That’s a worthy idea too.

Maybe you think we need to help an industry under siege stay viable to support jobs that, byway of taxpayer dollars, will fund that better balance between people and nature. Or maybe you think we just need to invest in your new innovation because, if it succeeds, that’s how we can balance people and nature. Or maybe you think we just need newer nature stories, as that will inspire the population to think of better ways to balance people and nature. Brilliant! Awesome! Absolutely!

You see where we’re going with this? All of these ideas are right. Your idea is right. That’s how we want you to envision balancing the needs of people and nature.

We’re not here to tell you what to think, just to make sure that you do think. And as long as you are thinking critically and are doing your research and are listening and weighing the opinions of those you disagree with? Your idea will contribute to a better Canada and a better world; your idea will help create a better balance between people and nature. As we keep saying: you’ve got this!