High school economics & career days

In a previous life I participated as a presenter at several high school days - letting kids know what careers in math & stat might be like.

I recall my own 'career day' experience in 9th grade. Somehow this ended up part of our English curriculum: research a career, write about it, and deliver a brief speech about it to the class.

If memory serves, most of my classmates and I chose from among a fairly restricted list of possibilities.
No, there was no formal "list" from which to choose - it's just that none of us really knew what was out there, so all settled on a very small subset of careers (e.g., teacher, biochemist).

The brief note about the oxymoronic "decoupled economy" below suggests a tactic that allows students to both get a better understanding of economics and help 'em think seriously about career options.

Here's a starting point:

Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation.
[Verdana]

That's right: someone designed the Verbana font!

Here's where it goes:

"Pick up your textbook.

"Look at the cover. Someone - a graphic artist - designed that cover.

"What's the cover made of? (likely cardboard & cloth).

"Where'd the cardboard come from? - it's a paper product - likely derived from wood pulp. Where'd the cardboard come from? Who was involved in making it. (loggers, truck drivers, chemists, industrial line workers... the list goes on & on & on).

"Let's focus on the loggers. How'd they get to the forest? What tools did they use to cut down the tree? How'd they get the tree from the forest to some intermediate shipping point? Who made the tools? Where'd the metal come from? - miners!"

You get the idea.

Take a simple everyday object - a textbook, a pencil, a chair - and trace its origins. Who were all the people involved in getting that simple object into your hands? (... salesmen, accountants, artists, scientists, technicians, artists, miners, ... and who fed all these people? - farmers, ranchers, butchers, ... and where'd they all live? in houses? who built the houses? carpenters, masons, cabinet-makers, plumbers, electricians... )

Pretty soon you've opened up a world of possibilities - not just 'teacher', 'scientist', 'veterinarian'...
At the same time, you've provided an introduction to fundamental economics: who pays for all this? How are prices set? Where's the money come from?

Just an idea.