Employment Opportunities
Join our team of talented, passionate, committed educators! The Chesapeake Watershed Semester, operated by the Gunston School, is always happy to hear from interested individuals. Please reach out to director, Ronnie Vesnaver, to introduce yourself or inquire. Currently, there are no open positions for the 2024-2025 school year. We are, however, a Chesapeake Conservation Corps Host Site Applicant. If you are interested in becoming a Chesapeake Conservation Corps Member for the Chesapeake Watershed Semester, please read the details below.
Application Open for the Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps
Looking to break into the environmental field and launch your career? Looking to make a difference and create change? Or know a young person who is? Young professionals gain experience, crucial career skills, a support system, and key connections within the environmental field through the Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps.
The Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps is a one-year term of stipend-supported service that places young adults with nonprofits or government agencies to serve full-time in the environmental field. Throughout the year young professionals receive experience managing projects and programs, leadership and professional development training, mentorship, a support network of young professionals, and other skill-building opportunities including networking and grant writing. Positions offered by the host organizations are in the fields of environmental restoration, community engagement, climate change, environmental education, sustainable agriculture, energy conservation, and forestry.
This year The Chesapeake Watershed Semester at the Gunston School is one of the many potential Host Organizations for the 2024-25 Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps service year. If successfully matched with CWS you would serve on a team of Gunston staff members who work on environmental initiatives and curricular programming at the school.
The staff member will spend the first half of the school year on the Chesapeake Watershed Semester (CWS) team. CWS is the school’s environmental, place-based semester program for 11th and 12th grade students. The Corps Member will be given the responsibility of leading the semester’s research seminar for the students. This will involve instructing researching skills, scaffolding the research process, and mentoring the students through their research and final presentation. The Corps Member will also help to plan all of the field expeditions and will attend the program’s trips. The trips include overnight expeditions to western Maryland, Eastern Pennsylvania, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the Hampton Roads area. They will also help with additional program needs throughout the fall.
During the spring semester the Corps Member will fill two main roles. They will teach a semester-long elective course on climate change. They will additionally join a team of staff members that plan and implement the school’s Bay Studies program– a week long field experience for all Gunston students in May.
The Corps Member will be given the opportunity to additionally be involved with the school’s environmental club and/or to design and implement a project on the school’s 75-acre waterfront campus.
This position would be perfect for someone who is interested in environmental education in both conventional and non-traditional classroom spaces. The scope and scale of the work will allow the Corps Member to try their hand in outdoor education and classroom teaching while also building skills around trip-planning and logistics. In the process, the Corps Member will be exposed to the full geographic region of the Chesapeake watershed and the wide array of program partners that Gunston has built relationships with over the years.
The Chesapeake Bay Trust anticipates placing around 50 Corps Members, young adults 18-25, with nonprofit organizations and government agencies throughout the Chesapeake Bay region for a year of stipend-supported service ($31,200) beginning on August 15, 2024.
Applications for the Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps must be submitted through the Trust’s online system by March 7, 2022 at 4:00 pm. To learn more and apply go to https://cbtrust.org/chesapeake-conservation-corps/apply/.
For any questions about the Chesapeake Conservation Corps contact Program Coordinator Hayley Rost (hrost@cbtrust.org) or 410-974-2941, ext. 119 or Carlton Burns cburns@cbtrust.org or 410-974-2941, ext. 125.