Careers in Outdoor Education
Earlham has a national reputation for training outstanding outdoor educators. The unique combination of on-campus courses, field experiences and leadership practica provides an excellent opportunity for development of both technical and interpersonal skills. Graduates have gone on to careers in environmental education, park management, wilderness guiding, and youth social work. Recent Earlham alumni have found work with Outward Bound, the Student Conservation Association, the National Park Service, and a variety of public and independent school settings.
Career resources
Outdoor Education
NOLS is a nonprofit global wilderness school that seeks to help you step forward boldly as a leader.
This site includes a blend of conservation and outdoor education jobs. It’s a great place to start investigating wilderness therapy jobs.
Since 1995, CoolWorks has been a leader in connecting people seeking meaningful and exciting work with the employers who are looking for their enthusiasm, energy and knowledge. They feature job opportunities in great places — from national parks to ski resorts, dude ranches to summer camps, and everything in between.
Sign up for this email newsletter to receive regular emails listing open year-round (or longer than just May – August) camp jobs throughout the U.S. Typically there are anywhere from 35 to 100 job openings in each issue!
This one is a great resource for ropes course / climbing / challenge education jobs throughout the country.
Conservation and field science
This site has a listing of every single conservation corps in the country. You can browse by location or jump over to the job postings and see which corps are currently hiring. Not all corps jobs are necessarily field based, but most are. This is a great first stop if you are interested in doing conservation work–use it as a conduit to get more info about which corps are hiring where and then investigate the individual corps themselves.
The SCA is the largest conservation nonprofit organization in the country. Once you’ve created a MySCA account and updated your applications, you can apply to internships all at once. One thing to note is that the internships tend to be competitive, and they only send out your application to the partners if they think you’re qualified. The corps programs they offer are typically easier to get into.
This university job board is well-regarded in the world of recent science grads and offers lots of entry-level field research jobs.
The Nature Conservancy is a private charitable conservation organization. They have nature preserves all over the country. They tend to have many jobs available at any given time.
Sign up for this email newsletter to receive regular emails listing open year-round (or longer than just May – August) camp jobs throughout the U.S. Typically there are anywhere from 35 to 100 job openings in each issue!
Graduate programs in Outdoor Education
While Earlham does not offer any graduate programs in outdoor education, we have many recommendations for programs at outside universities for those interested in pursuing their M.A. or M.S.
- Alaska Pacific University – M.S. Outdoor and Environmental Education
- California State University, Chico – M.A. Kinesiology with a focus in Outdoor Education
- Georgia College – M.Ed. Outdoor Education Administration
- Griffith University – Australia – M.A. Environment
- Hofstra University – Advanced Certification in Adventure Education
- Indiana University – M.S. Recreation
- North Dakota State University – M.S. Health, Nutrition & Exercise Management with a focus in Recreation Management
- Northern Illinois University – M.S.Ed. Outdoor Teacher
- Ohio University – M.S. Recreation & Sport Science
- Plymouth State – M.S. Adventure Education
- Prescott College – M.A. Outdoor Education Leadership, M.A. Adventure Education
- Southern Adventist University – Md.Ed. Outdoor Education
- Texas A&M – M.S. Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Science
- Trinity Saint David, Wales – M.A. in Outdoor Education
- University of Akron – M.A./M.S. Outdoor Education
- University of Edinburgh, Scotland – M.S. Outdoor Education, PGDip Outdoor Education, PGCert OE
- University of Idaho – M.S. Movement & Leisure Studies
- University of New Hampshire – M.S. Recreation Management & Policy
- University of Utah – M.S. Parks, Recreation & Tourism
- West Virginia University – M.S. Recreation, Parks, Tourism Management