Overview
Oregon is committed to providing career exploration opportunities for our students through Career Connected Learning (CCL). Career awareness and exploration allows students to explore and assess their academic and workplace skills. This is important as they explore their aptitudes and interests, and plan for the future. Parents and mentors play a key role in career exploration—in fact, research shows that parents have the greatest influence on their children's career choices.
Career Connected Learning Resources
The CCL team at the Oregon Department of Education, the Higher Education Coordinating Commission, and the CCL System Navigators have partnered with education service districts and professionals around the state to create a suite of Career Connected Learning tools. These CCL resources are designed to provide parents, mentors, educators, industry leaders and community based organizations with tools to help students navigate learning about—and preparing for—a career of their choice.
These tools and resources are designed to help students expand awareness of careers and identify their interests and strengths that could lead to success in those careers. Some resources support student exploration of various career fields and help students identify the employability skills required for success. Other tools help students navigate the transition from K-12 to their future goals. Check back often to find the tools that can help you!
If you have questions about any of these opportunities, please contact
Susan Samek at ODE for more information.
OES is a suite of curriculum addressing the 10 skills identified as essential to employment success in Oregon by a Workforce and Talent Development Board (WTDB) report. It is available for first grade through adult/workforce. This curriculum supports learners' introduction to skills, applying them to their own lives and reflecting on how they use them in their school or work. The curriculum is available fully in Spanish and Russian, with supporting documents in other languages. There is an eLearning version as well. Learners can also earn badges which can then be shared with potential employers.
This website serves as a resource and communication hub to support learners, teachers, families, and business and industry partners in learning more about careers in Oregon. It hosts a variety of resources and tools, including Sassy—the AI explorer. The regional pages provide opportunities for interested parties to connect and exchange ideas and strategies.
This video series supports learning about careers in an immersive, story-telling fashion. Enjoy the short videos that share the journeys of diverse young Oregonians from all around the state. Dive into the longer Q&A videos about their experiences and use the toolkit to create engaging lessons around the video series and career development. Each federally recognized tribe is represented by a young person sharing their story.
These two courses support educators through guided learning and toolkits to support the development of a Career Education Plan aligned to the Oregon Career Connected Learning (CCL) Framework and a Comprehensive School Counseling program (CSCP) that supports students. Both courses are designed to support the requirements for CSCP and Career Education as mandated in CSCP and Career Education as mandated in Division 22 . More importantly, they are designed to support educators in their efforts to improve outcomes for students through CCL and CSC.
C3 partnered with ODE to develop tools to support career education, including career journey maps that can be used by counselors, teachers, families and caregivers, and students to help learners identify their goals, strengths and interests, and craft a path forward to meet their career aspirations. Lessons in career education and preparation for postsecondary experiences were adapted from some used in Washington state to better meet the needs of Oregon learners. C3 also provides professional development to support educators in this related work.
Oregon CIS provides an online library full of career information and career planning tools customized for Oregonians, which allows users to review information and tools, and create and update an education plan and profile for students. Contact Oregon CIS for current pricing.
TOB was selected as the
2025 Workforce Program of the Year by the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals (NAWDP).
TOB engages, educates, and empowers youth through hands-on Career Connected Learning experiences in construction, manufacturing, emergency management, and other high-demand industries. Through partnerships with schools, industry, and community organizations, students develop technical, leadership, and employability skills while applying their learning to authentic projects that benefit Oregon communities.
These project-based, standards-aligned resources embed career-connected learning directly into everyday core instruction, helping students connect what they're learning now to who they might become. Along the way, students strengthen academic understanding and build essential employability skills, as they start their Education Plan and Profile.
Learn more by reviewing the
Informational Slides on the Oregon Middle School Career Awareness and Exploration Modules.
CCL Information and Research