The activities planned in the unit work together to help children think creatively on how living, learning and working change over time. The unit focuses on the potential impact of innovation on life and the world of work. The unit works to offer structured occasions for reflections on the future and works to give students the chance to think of changes in a proactive way to promote the pupils’ sense of agency and to highlight opportunities. Stage 1: Look back The first activity invites pupils to look back and to think of the major changes of the past. Children are either invited to collect old familiy pictures or are givenold pictures. They are invited to draw on a copy of the pictures how the world would look like now. Children are invited to show their drawings and to list the elements added focusing on what changed in the last decades. The activity can be planned to happen in a class setting or pupils can be asked to do the drawing at home and to then present them at school. 

Stage 2: Look ahead Pupils are now asked to look ahead and to think of future changes which will shape society and work. Pupils are read the example of a short story set in 2050 where a young girl/boy is going to a museum where innovations from the recent past are shown (see the short story in Appendix). Pupils (individually or in group) are then asked to think of one innovation that could be invented in the future (which could be one of the innovations shown in the museum). Students are invited to create a little exhibition on the innovations they chose to describe and they are asked to prepare a little description of each of them and an image to describe it (as it could be shown in the museum). A useful supporting material for this activity could be the interview of Isaacs Asimov done in 1983. In the inteview he was asked to predic the world in 2019. https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2018/12/27/35-years-ago-isaac-asimov-was-asked-by-the-star-to-predict-the-world-of-2019-here-is-what-he-wrote.html This stage ends with the presentation of the work of every group/pupil as in the museum described in the short story. 

Stage 3. Once the future is described with activity presented in Stage 2, each student is invited to create a wordcloud of the future to draw a words portrait of a future scenario. The teacher is invited to create a common word cloud which could represent the individual works. 

Stage 4. Pupils are asked to work in groups to think of a future career. The list of questions shown below can be used as a form to fill in (“the future career passport”). 

Name of the career:

What does she/he do in his/her job? 

Which are the main features of this job? 

Which are the main tools? 

Which skills does she/he need? Where does she/he work? 

Who are her/his colleagues?