Name: ______________________ Date: __________

All pay ranges are marked and should be filled from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook (bls.gov/ooh) and New York State Department of Labor wage data for the Long Island region.

Pages 1 to 3. The Thirteen Career Cards (cut apart)

Every card has the same five lines: the link in the chain, a day in the job, the training, the pay range, and one thing most people do not know.

1. FARMER or GROWER

Link: GROW
A day: Out before light. Check the fields or the greenhouse, the water, the weather forecast, the equipment. Decide what gets planted, what gets picked today, and what gets sold where. In season the day ends when the work ends.
Training: No degree required to farm. Many farmers learn from family. A two- or four-year degree in agriculture, horticulture, or agricultural business helps with the business side. Apprenticeships exist on organic and small farms.
Pay: Highly variable; depends on the crop, the acreage, and the weather.
Most people do not know: a farmer is running a small business with weather as a partner. The hardest part of the job is usually the math, not the lifting.

2. FOOD SCIENTIST

Link: STUDY and PROCESS
A day: In a lab or a test kitchen. Change one thing in a formula and see what happens to the taste, the texture, or how long it lasts. Write up the result. Meet with the company about whether the new version can be made at scale.
Training: A four-year degree in food science, chemistry, or biology. Many have a master's or a doctorate.
Pay: One of the higher-paying jobs in the chain.
Most people do not know: the quick bread lab we ran, four batches with one variable changed, is exactly what this job does all day.

3. FOOD SAFETY INSPECTOR

Link: INSPECT
A day: Walk into a restaurant, a food plant, or a school kitchen with a clipboard or a tablet. Check refrigerator temperatures, handwashing sinks, the way raw and cooked food are stored, the records. Write the report. If it is bad enough, close the kitchen.
Training: A four-year degree, usually in environmental health, food science, or biology, plus a state or county exam and on-the-job training. Some counties hire with an associate degree plus experience.
Pay: A government salary with benefits and a pension.
Most people do not know: this person has legal authority. They can shut a business down that day, and nobody argues with them.

4. FOOD PROCESSING TECHNICIAN

Link: PROCESS
A day: Run and monitor the machines in a plant that turns raw food into a packaged product: milk into cheese, wheat into flour, tomatoes into sauce. Check temperatures, weights, and seals. Log everything. Shut the line down if something is off.
Training: High school plus on-the-job training. A certificate or a two-year degree in food processing technology or industrial maintenance moves you up fast.
Pay: Often includes shift differential for nights.
Most people do not know: there are a lot of these jobs and most people have never heard of them. It is one of the easiest doors into the food industry.

5. SUPPLY CHAIN AND LOGISTICS COORDINATOR

Link: MOVE
A day: At a desk with a phone and three screens. Decide which truck goes where, when, and with what on it. Fix it when a truck breaks down or a shipment is short. Talk to the plant, the warehouse, the driver, and the store all in one hour.
Training: A two- or four-year degree in supply chain management, logistics, or business. Some people start as a warehouse worker or a dispatcher and move up.
Pay: Solid, with room to grow into a management salary.
Most people do not know: this job did not exist in anything like its current form fifty years ago. Software and national distribution made it, and there are a lot of openings.

6. GROCERY BUYER

Link: SELL
A day: Decide what the store will carry, how much, and at what price. Negotiate with suppliers. Read sales data. Build the weekly circular: which items go on sale, at what price, on which page.
Training: A four-year degree in business, marketing, or agricultural economics. Many buyers started as store employees and moved into the office.
Pay: A business salary, often with a bonus tied to sales.
Most people do not know: the prices we used in this project were set by somebody with this job. The circular is a decision, not a fact.

7. GROCERY STORE MANAGER

Link: SELL
A day: Open the store or close it. Schedule 60 to 200 people. Handle the shipment that came in short, the cooler that failed, the customer who is upset, and the inventory count. Walk the floor constantly.
Training: High school plus years of store experience is the most common path. A two- or four-year degree in business speeds it up.
Pay: Competitive, with long hours and weekends.
Most people do not know: most supermarket managers started as a teenager bagging groceries or stocking shelves. It is a climbable ladder.

8. CHEF or LINE COOK

Link: COOK
A day: Come in hours before service. Prep everything (mise en place). Then service: cook 80 to 300 plates in three or four hours, to the same standard every time, in the heat, standing. Clean. Do it again tomorrow. Nights, weekends, and holidays.
Training: No degree required. Start as a dishwasher or prep cook and climb. A culinary certificate or an associate degree speeds it up. ServSafe food safety certification is often required of a supervisor and can be earned in high school.
Pay: Line cooks start low. An executive chef earns much more, after years.
Most people do not know: television makes this job look like fame. It is mostly repetition, heat, and speed, and the people who love it love the repetition.

9. BAKER

Link: COOK
A day: Start between 2 and 5 in the morning. Mix, shape, proof, bake, finish. Everything is measured by weight and by time, and a five-minute mistake is a ruined batch. Done by early afternoon.
Training: On-the-job training, a registered apprenticeship, or a baking and pastry certificate. Very little of this job requires a four-year degree.
Pay: Production bakers start modestly; a skilled pastry position pays more.
Most people do not know: baking is the most scientific cooking job. The leavening lab in this unit is a baker's daily problem.

10. CATERER

Link: COOK and SERVE
A day: Half the job is food and half is planning and selling. Meet the client. Price the event. Buy for 40 or 400. Cook off-site, transport it hot or cold, set it up, serve it, break it down, and get paid.
Training: Any of the above, because most caterers own the business. Food safety certification is usually required by the county. Business skills matter as much as cooking skills.
Pay: It is a business, so it depends on how the business is run.
Most people do not know: this is the job most like the Feed the Class project. Scale a recipe, price it, build a flowchart, execute it in one shot, clean up, and answer for the cost.

11. REGISTERED DIETITIAN

Link: STUDY
A day: In a hospital, a school district, a clinic, or a nursing home. Read charts. Meet patients or clients. Write eating plans for real medical conditions. Train kitchen staff. Write reports for insurance and for the state.
Training: A four-year degree, then a graduate degree (required to sit for the exam since 2024), a supervised internship, and a national exam, then state licensure.
Pay: A professional salary with benefits.
Most people do not know: "nutritionist" is not a protected title in many places, but "registered dietitian" is. The credential is the difference.

12. FOOD PHOTOGRAPHER or FOOD STYLIST

Link: SELL
A day: A studio or a kitchen with lights. Make food look the way it looks on a menu or a package. Two hours on one plate. Half the job is technical (light, lens, color) and half is patience.
Training: No degree required. A portfolio is the qualification. Photography or design coursework, and often a lot of unpaid practice, is how people start.
Pay: Freelance and uneven, especially early.
Most people do not know: this job barely existed as a full-time career fifty years ago. Phones, packaging, and delivery apps made it.

13. AGRICULTURAL ENGINEER

Link: GROW and MOVE
A day: Design the equipment and the systems a farm runs on: irrigation, greenhouse climate control, harvesting machinery, storage that keeps food from spoiling. Part office, part field.
Training: A four-year degree in agricultural, biological, or mechanical engineering. A professional engineering license for some roles.
Pay: An engineering salary.
Most people do not know: a big part of reducing food waste worldwide is an engineering problem, not a cooking problem: better storage, better cooling, better transport.

The fourteenth card (grade 8 stretch). Write your own.

Job title: ________________________ Link: ________________________

A day: ________________________________________________________

Training: ________________________________________________________

Pay: ________________________________________________________

One thing most people do not know: ______________________________________

Does it exist within 25 miles of here? Where? ______________________________

Page 4. The Chain Mat and the Education Sort Strip

The chain mat (place all thirteen cards)

Some cards belong in more than one link. Write them in both and be ready to say why.

The education sort strip (re-sort the same thirteen cards)

One job in each column: 1. ______________ 2. ______________ 3. ______________ 4. ______________

The two cards that were hardest to place: ______________ and ______________

Why they were hard: ________________________________________________________

The five training paths

Page 5. "Would I Like This?" and the Long Island Jobs Page

Would I like this? (pick two cards: one you would consider, one you would not)

One sentence: "I would / would not want to be a ________________________ because ________________________________________________________."

Compare to the fall. Pull the career self-check you wrote in Lesson 1.22, back in Unit 1. Did your answer change? ______ How? ________________________________

The closing question: Which link in the chain has the most jobs? ______________
Which link has the jobs nobody applies for? ______________

The Long Island jobs page

Circle every job on the career cards that exists within about 25 miles of this school. Use this page to help.

Two jobs near here I did not know existed: ______________________ and ______________________

Page 6. Four Links: the Review Game (Day 2, 15 minutes)

Four teams, the same station teams. Twenty-four cards in four piles. The teacher reads a card; every team writes an answer on its board and holds it up on the cue. A correct answer is 1 point. A correct answer with a reason is 2 points. The class master flowchart, the four station posters, and the two waste numbers are on the walls and are fair game.

Pile 1: Where Food Comes From (Topic 6.1)

1. Put these four in order from farm to plate: retailer, producer, distributor, processor.
2. What are food miles, and why would a shorter number matter?
3. Name two things from the state's own list that can affect the food supply.
4. What is a food desert, and name one thing a community can do about it.
5. What did our own food waste audit measure, and what was the number?
6. Name one sustainable farming or food practice and say what problem it solves.

Pile 2: Methods and Science (Topic 6.2)

1. Dry heat or moist heat: bake, simmer, broil, steam. Sort all four.
2. In the quick bread lab, what was the variable and what were the controls?
3. What does baking powder do that baking soda alone does not?
4. Name one dish we made and one cooking method it used, and say why that method fit.
5. On a place setting, where do the fork, the spoon, and the cup go?
6. Name the same dish in two different cuisines and one thing that changes between them.

Pile 3: The Feed the Class System (Topic 6.3)

1. A recipe makes 4 and you need 28. What is the scale factor, and how did you get it?
2. A recipe needs 3 cups of sauce and the store sells 24 ounce jars. How many jars, and why?
3. Why do you always round up and never down?
4. Store brand: 8 oz for $1.99. Name brand: 12 oz for $3.49. Which is cheaper per ounce?
5. What is a critical path? Name your own station's.
6. What is the rule about the clock when a dish is running late?
7. Why does one shopping list beat four?
8. Name three things on the twelve-item approval checklist.
9. What was our class cost per person, planned and actual?

Pile 4: Careers (Topic 6.4)

1. Name the job that can legally close a kitchen down, and the link it works at.
2. Name a food-chain job that needs no degree and one that needs a four-year degree or more.
3. What is ServSafe and why would a high school student want it?

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