Serve somewhere unexpected…
Sure. You could spend a few months serving the planet with SCA at a world famous national park, working around tourists, instagramming thoroughly ogled geysers in your spare time. Your friends back home will check their phones and be all like, “Oh. Look at that. Dylan’s hanging out at Yellowstone or something. That’s cool.”
Apply early enough and often enough, and it’s possible that we can make that happen.
Or, you can snag one of our many, many under the radar internships; clandestine conservation service opportunities located within some of the best kept secrets of America’s national public lands system. You’ll get the same kind of Earth-saving, life-changing, resume-expanding experience that you would at the Grand Canyon or Yosemite, but when you post the photos your friends will be like, “What?? Where is that??”
So what do you say? How do you prefer your adventures in conservation? Middle of the road? Or off the beaten path?
Check out our Top Ten Under the Radar Internships and let us know on your application. 😉
10. Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge is one of the most biodiverse locations in the USA. As a SCA Restoration Intern at the site, you’ll be working to return former cropland to its natural state by collecting, raising, and reintroducing native woodland plants. With Ocelots among the 700 vertebrates that call the refuge home, you could be restoring habitat for one of America’s most rare and beautiful predators. Sound cool? APPLY here.
An ocelot , one of the many wild critters you might find in South Texas. Photo Source: Wikipedia/USFWS
9. Are you a people person who also loves fish and freshwater snorkeling in the middle of the woods? Then you may be right for our Citico Creek Conservation Internship in Cherokee National Forest, where duties will include leading educational snorkeling programs and helping visitors familiarize themselves with a Southern Appalachian watershed that serves as critical habitat for 10 or more at-risk freshwater species. APPLY here.
The Eagle Branch of Citico Creek in Tennessee. Photo by Chris M. Morris via Flickr.
8. As a member of SCA’s Allegheny County Parks Ranger Corps, you’ll get to step into a ranger’s shoes (and hat, and uniform) for six months and learn exactly what it means to be responsible for ensuring safe and fun outdoor experiences for all of the park’s varied visitors. If you’ve got your sights set on a rangering career, this is the opportunity for you. APPLY.
7. Miles from anything but pine forest and scrubland, nestled under a spectacularly arching cliff in Arizona’s Upper Sonoran Desert, you’ll find the well-preserved ruins of a stone-walled compound that was last occupied over 500 years ago. As an SCA Interpretation Intern at Tonto National Monument you’ll help guide visitors as they experience these dwellings, and introduce them to the customs and artifacts of the ancient Native Americans who built them: the Salado Culture. Fascinated by the people and cultures of pre-Columbian North America? This might be the internship for you. APPLY
Tonto National Monument’.
6. Want to move to Alaska and talk about trail safety on the internet for a living? While abiding within a day’s travel of some of the world’s most spectacular hiking and wildlife-watching destinations (Chugach National Forest and Denali National Park, to name a couple)? Then you should probably APPLY to be the Bureau of Land Management’s SCA Alaska Media and Communications Intern.
Alpine lakes in Chugach National Forest, less than 2 hrs drive from BLM’s Anchorage office. Photo: Wikipedia.