- Agency
- Great Basin Institute
- Location
- Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, WA
- Job Category
- Temporary/Seasonal Positions
- Salary
- Living Allowance: $1,000 biweekly. Education Award: $2,474.27.
- Start Date
- 05/07/2023
- Last Date to Apply
- 05/07/2023
- Website
- https://www.vscyberhosting.com/greatbasin/Careers.aspx?rf=TAM&req=2023-ACI-011
- Description
- Description: The Great Basin Institute, in cooperation with the United States Forest Service (Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, managed by Gifford Pinchot National Forest), is recruiting 2 Visitor Services & Interpretation Technicians to participate in developing and delivering interpretive and educational programs and resources. Interpretation and Conservation Education are driven by a philosophy that charges interpreters to help audiences care about the resources so they might support the care of those resources. Interpretation establishes the value of preserving resources by helping audiences discover the meanings and significance associated with those resources. Interpreters: • Understand their role to facilitate connections between resource meanings and audience interests. • Understand, recognize, and create opportunities for audiences to make their own intellectual and emotional connections to resource meanings. • Understand, recognize, and cohesively develop an idea or ideas in interpretive products and activities. • Understand the roles and relationships of resource knowledge, audience knowledge, and interpretive techniques in interpretive products and activities. • Purposefully reflect on interpretive philosophies and best practices, deepen their understandings, and apply these philosophies and best practices to all interpretive competencies. Conservation Education (CE) helps people of all ages understand and appreciate our country's natural resources - and learn how to conserve those resources for future generations. Through structured educational experiences and activities targeted to varying age groups and populations, conservation education enables people to realize how natural resources and ecosystems affect each other and how resources can be used wisely. Through conservation education, people develop the critical thinking skills they need to understand the complexities of ecological problems. Conservation Education also encourages people to act on their own to conserve natural resources and use them in a responsible manner by making informed resource decisions. Primary duties include visitor management practices, processes, methods, and procedures that include the following: 1) Informs the public of Forest Service visitor information services, recreation program activities, recreation rules and regulations, traffic control, and accident prevention. 2) Develops and conducts scheduled interpretive talks for our general visitors and conservation education programs for youth. Defines the significance of the site and its background. Answers recurring questions that require knowledge of a limited variety of facts, events, circumstances, personalities, and natural characteristics identified with the site. 3) Assists with the visitor center’s program operations working at the information desk and at the entrance station by dealing with such issues pertaining to picnic facilities, visitor control, and fee collection. 4) Answers routine visitors’ inquiries that range from where the locations of historical monuments are to when programs are scheduled. Complicated situations are usually referred to a higher-graded employee for resolution. 5) Assists higher-graded Park Rangers with planning improvements of visitor center facilities and conducting interpretive programs. 6) Maintains supply of informational materials and other stock items for distribution. Distributes publications requested in telephone and mail inquiries. Collects fees and book sale monies. 7) Performs routine daily opening and closing procedures and assists with general office tasks. 8) Operates audio visual equipment if needed 9) Performs minor maintenance and janitorial. 10) Checks the usage and condition of public use areas, boat ramps, and other recreation areas for safety, fire, sanitation and maintenance reasons. 11) Performs other duties as assigned. Contract Timeline: • 19-week appointment beginning May 7th 2023 • Full time (40 hours/week) Location: At 8:32am Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. Within a few moments, nearly 150 square miles of forest was blown over or left dead and standing. Fifty-seven lives were lost and the ensuing 9-hour eruption left a dramatically changed landscape. In 1982, the President and Congress created the 110,000-acre National Volcanic Monument to be managed by the Forest Service for research, recreation, education, protecting local communities, and allowing natural processes to unfold. In addition to the legislated Monument, Mount St. Helens administrative unit also includes general forest areas. These areas are primarily to the south and east of the Monument, and are where the majority of dispersed recreation activities occur. Today, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument contains many popular trailheads, waterfalls, lakes, forests, and lava tubes, managed by the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. This position will be located in the Northern section of Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. Compensation and Benefits: • Total Living Allowance: up to $10,200 (Approximately $1,000.00 biweekly before taxes) • Segal AmeriCorps Education Award: $2,474.27 (Upon successful completion, the award may be used for past, present or future educational expenses, including payment of qualifying federal student loans and Title IV accredited college tuition.) • Onsite housing provided at no extra cost • Employer-provided health insurance for all employees, including seasonal hires: Medical, dental, and vision
- Qualifications
- • General knowledge of natural resource management and conservation and how to this knowledge applies to visitor management. (This bullet point used to require a college degree or coursework). • Basic knowledge of public outreach and communication tools and techniques to identify audiences and messages. • Familiarity with the diverse range of outdoor facilities and maintenance requirements, such as, visitor centers, trails, wayside exhibits, in order to provide safe, wildlife/environmental-dependent recreation opportunities for visitors. • Skills in oral and written communication. • Ability to assist with the implementation of natural resource-dependent recreational programs. • Ability to perform work within well-established parameters; employee will have some responsibility for initiating, developing, or modifying work methods. • Knowledge of the resources and objectives of the visitor center, subject matter, and audiences when developing specific interpretive programs. Interest in the overall mission and goals of the Forest Service. • Ability to provide quality information, education and interpretive services to increase the public’s understanding and appreciation of natural resources, their conservation and management. Work will include specific routine duties to support the Forest Service’s visitor services program. • Interest in the development of natural resource-dependent recreational opportunities that minimize impacts to public land while simultaneously promoting the overall mission of the Forest Service. • Interest in making contacts with the general public, co-workers, volunteers, support groups, conservation organizations, and other audiences to welcome and orient visitors, interpret recreational and/or historical sites, explain Forest Service policies and regulations coordinate work efforts, and assist with partnerships. Additional requirements: • Demonstrated experience and comfort with public speaking and communicating with diverse audiences; • Comfortable living onsite in shared housing; • Possess a valid, state-issued driver’s license and clean driving record; and • Meet AmeriCorps eligibility requirements: (1) U.S. citizenship or legal resident alien status, (2) eligible to receive an AmeriCorps Education Award (limit of four in a lifetime or the equivalent of two full-time education awards), (3) pass National Sex Offender Public Website (NSOPW) and federal criminal background checks, (4) adhere to the rules, regulations and code of conduct as specified in the Member Service Agreement; and (5) not engage in any prohibited activities as listed in the Member Service Agreement.
- Contact Person
- Kaitlin
