Naturalist Internship

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Timeframe:

• Academic quarter or semester
• 5-10 hours per month

Keep Coyote Creek Beautiful is a community-based organization with a vision of a vibrant Coyote Creek: clean waters, abundant wildlife, and natural beauty that everyone can enjoy. We mobilize community resources and participation, and engage community members to become the creek’s advocates and caretakers. As part of our efforts to showcase the creek and its environs, we hold multiple events a month including Creek Cleanups, BioBlitz Events, and Nature Walks.

One of our popular events is a BioBlitz, where naturalists team up with citizen scientists to document the natural world for a 2-hour period at a local park. We are looking for more naturalist docents to share their knowledge and love of nature with others.

This part-time position is an opportunity to combine a love of nature and Coyote Creek in our hands-on BioBlitz program. The position will be in-person on one or two weekend days per month at a park in the San Jose area. To learn more about the local ecology and methodology of a BioBlitz, the intern will be paired with an experienced naturalist. After the BioBlitz event, the intern will review observations from the event on iNaturalist on a computer and make family, genus or species identifications.

The ideal candidate works well in a team, is knowledgeable about biodiversity and nature, detail-oriented, and will bring enthusiasm to their work. Candidates should have a grasp of the local ecology and excellent communication skills to share their love of nature. Additionally, they have a working knowledge of iNaturalist, the main tool we use during a BioBlitz.

This position is under the direction of the program manager. Intern must be able to get to locales along Coyote Creek to participate in the events. Depending on the intern’s performance and availability, the internship can extend beyond this timeframe.

• Provide naturalist docent duties to show nature to small groups of people
• Demonstrate to participants/explorers how to take and record observations into iNaturalist
• Take and record observations into iNaturalist
• Take photographs at BioBlitz events of people and share with KCCB
• Review observations from the event on iNaturalist and make family, genus or species identifications
• Obtain anecdotal comments from attendees and share them with the program manager
• Write a monthly blog about your experiences at the events

• Credits towards a course or independent study
• Learn about the local ecology of the Coyote Creek Watershed, the largest in the County of Santa Clara and longest creek
• Build relationships with naturalists from a variety of fileds
• Gain confidence in sharing their knowledge about nature
• Experience working with partner organizations
• Expanding communication skills to a diverse audience
• Meet a wide variety of people who will expand your network, especially in the environmental and education field
• Learn or expand knowledge of how to use iNaturalist
• Work side-by-side with an experienced program director to develop or enhance writing and community building skills, which will be directly related to any future job