The first part of a larger study of Experience-Based Career Education (EBCE), this report deals with the implementation of EBCE during its first operational year and identifies six major themes which emerged from visits to the four laboratories which developed EBCE and to 10 EBCE pilot sites. The themes, each presented in a different chapter, involve (1) reactions of EBCE program staff to the innovation; (2) reactions of students; (3) EBCE impact on school organization and structure; (4) EBCE impact on a shift in the locus of learning from school to the community; (5) impact of shrinking school budgets on EBCE; (6) and different ways the laboratory staffs and local project staffs view the implementation of EBCE. A final chapter of the report presents brief sketches of the 10 EBCE pilot sites visited. (LMS)