What Does It Cost to
Live Like This?
GRADE 11 LESSON 2
Time Required: 30 – 45 minutes
Content Standards: (7.2.1. Standard 4): Students will acquire
the skills to investigate the world of work in relation to knowledge
of self and to make informed career decisions
Indicators:
a.) Students will develop skills to locate, evaluate, and interpret
career information.
e.) Students will learn to make decisions.
GOAL:
Students will determine the future income
needed to maintain a current standard of living.
Activity Statements:
Students will create a short essay describing their desired lifestyle in the future. They will use
their essays to draw a road map to get from high school to their desired destination, including
all of the possible detours and road blocks in between. Students will share their road maps
with the class when completed.
Materials:
Students will need paper and pencil
Chalkboard or Dry Erase Board
Instructor Resource #1 Sample Road Map
Instructor Resource #2 Showing a Detour
Extension Activity #1 Parents Helping Teens
LCD Projector
Procedures:
Say: Today we are going to take a look into the future and see if we like it and what we need to
do to make it happen.
Author: Shelly DeBerry (sdeberry@access.k12.wv.us)
What Does It Cost to
Live Like This?
GRADE 11 LESSON 2
Have students write a short essay (one to two paragraphs) describing their life in ten years.
Have them create a title for the essay and include the following information: the job they have,
where they are living, the type of home they have (apartment, house, renting or
own/mortgage), what type of car they are driving, other items they own such as a motorcycle,
swimming pool, RV or camper etc., their family (married, kids and how many or single), interest
they are pursuing or hobbies they have, civic organizations and clubs they belong to, where
they go mostly for vacations.
Give students about 15 minutes to complete their essays.
Then ask one or two students to read their essay aloud to the rest of the class.
Now have students use their essays to create a Road Map from here to their future, as if they
are giving someone directions on how to get from where they are today to where they want to
be ten years from now. Remind them to include possible road blocks and detours. They can
also show shortcuts if they want to. The items on their road map will include the education and
training they will receive during the next ten years, all the jobs they will have prior to the job
they have ten years from now including when they plan on getting promoted and moving
forward in their career (and their expected salary for each of those jobs or promotions), all the
places they will live prior to where they are living ten years from now, all the types of homes
they have lived in prior to the one they live in ten years from now, all the cars they have owned
and when they purchased each one, when and how they obtain of the other luxury items that
they want, when they plan on getting married and when they plan on having each of their
children, and all the hobbies and other interest they will be involved in for the next ten
years…etc.
Show Instructor Resource #1 Sample Road Map
Show Instructor Resource #2 Showing a Detour
Give students about ten minutes to work on these.
Then ask one of the students to draw their road map on the board and let the class give
feedback about whether or not it is realistic and whether they think the student will actually
have the income they need to get the things they want ten years from now.
Author: Shelly DeBerry (sdeberry@access.k12.wv.us)
What Does It Cost to
Live Like This?
GRADE 11 LESSON 2
Summary Discussion Questions:
Looking at your road map, what do you see that you didn’t realize before?
What possible road blocks are you are going face?
What can you do about the road blocks? Is there a shortcut available for your destination?
Will you likely use it or not? Why or why not?
What stood out to you about today’s lesson?
Does your current career plan allow you to achieve your desired lifestyle?
Refer to the first extension activity
Additional Resources:
1.) http://www.teachersnetwork.org/teachnetusa/landerson/getalife.htm
2.) http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/careers/planning/plan/parents/
Extension Activities:
1. Ask students to take their Road Maps home and share them with their parents and add
the next ten years onto their Road Maps with their parents help. So their final
destination of their Road Maps will be twenty years from now as they are approaching
forty years old.
2. You can also suggest that students create a webpage that shows them ten years from
now with the same type of information they put on their road maps and have their
parents involved in helping them to create the webpage.
3. Send home Extension Activity #1
Author: Shelly DeBerry (sdeberry@access.k12.wv.us)