In our world today, the Environment is becoming the concern of almost everyone, except the most pig headed. Degradation is everywhere; frogs are transforming with six legs, our rivers are polluted to the point that the stench is unbearable in some areas, and our children will never see creatures, plants and natural areas that in our youth we saw as commonplace. Educating people young and old is becoming increasingly important, and there are people willing and eager to teach, with no place to do it.

    Environmental Education began several years ago with  centers operating on the grounds of summer camps. These centers were operated seasonally, and staffed by seasonal teachers, usually recent college grads who were looking for permanent jobs and needing a job as a temporary way of making some money before finding a "real job", meaning a permanent job where they could make a decent living, or by interns; people taking college level courses, and getting college credit for teaching at these centers. Many (most) of these staff people have little or no experience in teaching, and some of them have a degree in something other than Science! They go through a week or two of staff training where they are shown how to teach several "canned" classes; classes designed by someone else, and these classes are taught the same way from season to season with little or no change.
    Most of Environmental Education is this way today, with very little change. You can now get a degree in Environmental Education, spending upwards of four years in college and spending untold amounts to get it,  and find yourself teaching at a seasonal center for $120.00/week, eating camp food, and sharing a dog hole of a room with someone else, along with bathroom facilities. Your hours are from around 7:00 in the morning until around 10:00 at night, with some weekends. Along with teaching, your duties may (and probably will) include: cleaning cabins after the groups have left, grounds maintenance,  dish washing, mowing lawns, waiting tables, and a host of other things which have little to do with Environmental Education.  At the end of the season, you have no job.
    In reality, you might find a job with a Nature Center or a park, where you see little of the field, and do more maintenance than teaching, or end up in a school teaching Science (Learn to dodge bullets!), and see none of the field, except for occasional field trips. If you find one of these jobs, you will be competing with thousands of other applicants with credentials similar to yours. Your chances of getting one, especially in a Nature Center are low indeed. State Environmental programs are also occasional possibilities for the educator, as are Game Warden and Park Ranger jobs. Here the job is more law enforcement than Naturalist.

    I found a web site that addressed this, and said that if you wanted to be in Environmental Education, you would have to be willing to sacrifice many things, including life style, comfort, free time, and other things. I feel that asking the professional to sacrifice the very comforts that everyone from a garage mechanic to a corporate Vice President takes for granted is absurd, and is a crying shame. In truth, you can make more money and have more free time working in a factory, and at the going rate for factory work, live a whole lot better. Is this right? I don't think so.

     I know that people are going to tell me I don't know what I am talking about. Don't I? I worked for 8 years in EE centers in the Southeastern US. I worked at 4 summer camps. Still say I don't know? Try again!

    I got several e-mails from people lamenting this situation when I wrote to some mailing lists with my own lamentations. One is working as a secondary school teacher, and hating it, and another is working as a Police Officer. Both have Environmental Education degrees.

    I want to see centers set up for the professional Environmental Educator. We need EE in our country, and yes in our world. We need these people, young and old, who have the love of Nature, out there teaching about it to all that will listen. They need to be paid a reasonable living. In our country today, Doctors, Lawyers and Professional Athletes are paid far more than the people who taught them! The EE Professional is paid far below poverty wage.
 

    I will write more on this as I have the time and inclination, but if you are an EE Professional, and want to see change, and have ideas on how to found a center for professionals in the Southeastern US, then join the list. Here is a link, so you don't have to go back to the top of the page.  EEsignup Link. Click here.