Environmental Educator and Community Organizer Internship at The Watershed Project
The mission of the Watershed Project is to educate and inspire communities to protect their local watersheds. Keeping this goal in mind, the Watershed Project staff creates and carries out a broad range of citizen involvement and education programs designed to protect the creeks, wetlands, and watersheds of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Position Description
This internship at The Watershed Project is made available and funded through a partnership with AmeriCorps. Under the direction of the program staff at the Watershed Project, the intern provides support for a host of volunteer and environmental education efforts such as classroom and field-based environmental programs, coastal cleanups and restoration events and activities. He or she contributes to the Watershed Project’s education, outreach, awareness, and public involvement activities, including delivering educational programming to youth and adults; volunteer workdays and monitoring events; and developing educational materials and implementing stewardship-based programs with students and adults.
The intern works with program staff to ensure that students, teachers, and community volunteers have the support and understanding needed to engage in watershed protection and enhancement activities, and to communicate basic water quality and habitat protection concepts to their community at large. The intern helps to develop and maintain systems needed to implement programs he or she is involved in.
General tasks are:
- Work with volunteers and interns
- Develop and implement outreach programs for students, adults, and volunteers.
- Prepare and present presentations on the Watershed Project’s programs and products at workshops, schools, fairs, and community meetings.
- Lead groups of adults and students in outdoor activities such as environmental restoration, gardening, or water quality monitoring.
- Coordinate requests from schools
- Outreach to new schools
- Assist with public inquiries
- Coordinate in-school classroom visits associated with outreach programs
- Prepare workday activities and educational materials
- Coordinate outreach programs
- Set up and assist at after school programs and environmental education workshops
- Maintain contact with partners regarding outreach projects
- Transport equipment and supplies to and from events and/or volunteers’ homes and workplaces
The intern will participate in a variety of projects and events held by the Watershed Project. These include:
Student Outreach to Schools
These programs outreach to local schools and student organizations about environmental stewardship, watersheds, and the impact of urban runoff pollution in the San Francisco Bay. The intern works with TWP staff to coordinate programs, make presentations, provide follow up to local schools, and survey students and teachers on program effectiveness. Projects include:
▪ San Pablo and Richmond after school and summer watershed education program.
▪ Community workdays around creek and shoreline issues
▪ Richmond Kids Watershed Institute program for 2nd students in Richmond.
▪ Service learning projects with local high schools
▪ Help coordinate MLK and Earth Day celebration
▪ Outreach and Publicity
Marsh Ecology Program
The Marsh Ecology Program is a three part program that includes a hands-on classroom presentation, outreach project and guided marsh field trip offered to local elementary schools
4Rs Student Program
The 4Rs student program lead students through a four part program including a pre and post surveys to determine their knowledge of the 4Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle and rot. Hands-on activities, presentations and visits to school gardens make up the rest of the programming
Work Schedule
This position is full time, beginning August 2009 through July 2010. A mandatory training, our Watershed Teaching Tools workshop, will take place from August 3- August 7. The member must complete a total of 1700 service hours during this period. The schedule at The Watershed Project requires flexibility, but is tentatively set for Monday through Friday with some Saturday work. The intern must have access to a car for carrying out programming. The Watershed Project is located in a beautiful natural setting on the Richmond Field Station, a satellite campus of UC Berkeley, off the SF Bay Trail in Richmond.
Compensation
Compensation for this position is paid by the AmeriCorps program. A full-time member receives a living allowance of approximately $1200 a month, health and dental insurance and an education stipend of $4,725.
To Apply: send a cover letter and resume to by June 8, 2009.
For more information about The Watershed Project, visit our website at www.thewatershedproject.org or call 510-665-3539.