Environmental Studies Jobs in Education and Academics: Working Conditions: Nontraditional Settings
Often in the traditional classroom setting the learner is there only because it is required. Educators working in nontraditional settings have the pleasure of working with learners who want to be there! Members of the general public who are interested in the mission of your organization, teachers who want to learn more, schoolchildren escaping their school-day routine, or campers heading off for a day or more away from home all make for a lively audience and hence a fun and challenging workday.
Environmental educators work in a variety of nontraditional classroom settings. The settings we will focus on here include national, regional, and local nonprofit organizations and federal, state, and local governments.
Typical Workday Responsibilities
A variety of workday responsibilities await educators working in nontraditional settings. Work schedules may be nonstandard and working outdoors may he a regular part of the job. You’ll need to prepare to educate a variety of audiences and create appropriate resources to do so. In the following sections, read about each of these factors that affect individuals working in nontraditional environmental education.
Nonstandard Work Schedules
Imagine, if you will, an environmental educator working for a science center as an interpreter. The bulk of the work may take place in the summer months when the hours of the center are extended into the evening. Expectations for weekend work are also high as such institutions are open every day of the week to accommodate vacationers. Summer is when families can travel, when teachers have free time to take advantage of development activities, and when students are out of school and ready for opportunities like summer camps.
Working Outside
In a nontraditional setting there may be lots of outdoor work involved. Educators might be expected to construct outdoor displays, build trails and paths, lead interpretive hikes or canoe excursions on a pond or lake, or walk along the seashore at low tide to identify specimens.
Your Audiences Will Vary in Many Ways
Environmental educators working in nontraditional settings must be prepared for audiences with very different backgrounds, different degrees of preparation, and highly varying ages and abilities. When the ages of your audience vary, you must be flexible. For example, your assignment might be to develop a field experience that focuses on a local pond. If the audience is composed of fifth graders, you will have to be prepared to take a nontechnical approach with lots of hands-on examples, allowing the students to participate in the gathering of specimens. If the group is from Elder Hostel, you can accommodate people who are less needful of tactile examples and are much more willing and able to listen and learn effectively by simple observation. A group of visiting biologists will require yet another very different approach. You must be prepared for technical discussions, probing questions, and people who might disagree with your interpretation. You’ll need to know scientific names of specimens and be generally prepared at a much more technical level.
The General Public. In many positions, you’ll be expected to cover a variety of subjects. You’ll have to become an expert on a wide range of topics. Often the full range of natural history will become your world, from aquatic biology to landscape evolution, and from mammalian ecology to rock identification. For example, at the Science Center of New Hampshire, educators design and deliver programs aimed at the general public that focus on the northern forest, flowering plants, watershed ecology, and geology of the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. They also design, build, and supervise the maintenance of displays. The tasks are wide-ranging; you’ll learn to be an environmental jack-of-all-trades.
A Destination for Class Field Trips. You might also be given an assignment to create opportunities for classroom teachers to bring their students to your natural history museum for field trips where the youngsters receive hands-on experiences with wildlife, earth science, and wetlands ecology. Environmental educators at such sites plan and lead field trips, identify areas suitable for river walks, and develop plant identification trails and interest points with significant elements of earth history. Again, the tasks and duties are highly variable.
Summer Learning Opportunities for School-Age Children. Many organizations offer environmental camps for children of all ages, for families, and even for teachers. The Audubon Society holds such camps. Program leaders have created programs that focus on the North Woods of Minnesota and Wisconsin, coastal kayaking along the rocky Maine coast, and trips that are directed toward bird-watchers. Search the Internet using the key words environ mental summer camp and you will be able to link to thousands of camps in the United States and Canada. All of these programs require individuals trained in the environment but also prepared to educate at many levels, from small children to teenagers and adult learners.
Professional Development Opportunities for Educators. Certain organizations provide opportunities for classroom teachers to enhance their knowledge of the environment. Summer institutes, where teachers can gain expertise in wetlands ecology, conservation and recycling, plant and wildlife identification, and earth science, for example, provide exciting settings for professional development.
Creating Effective Displays
Quite a number of organizations require staff to develop and maintain displays. Part of this is assessment of audience needs. Environmental educators can contribute to this end. A display does little to educate the public if it is poorly designed, too static, aimed at a level that is over the head of the intended audience, or too elementary. Educators can help produce interactive and hands-on experiences that both attract and educate students of all ages.
This category has such breadth it would be impossible to discuss all of the various settings in this type of blog/guide. You should be cautioned, if you are concerned about a nontraditional work schedule and/or responsibilities that require you to be exposed to the outdoors, to be sure to ask questions about job expectations during your interview. It is better to find out about these things up front than to have to deal with them after you’ve accepted the job.