School Year Residential Teacher-Naturalist

The Seashore Program provides the opportunity for 5th grade students to live, explore, and study in a beautiful setting within the Cape Cod National Seashore. Our living space is a former Coast Guard Station with some grand views of the Atlantic Ocean and the Pamet River valley. Our classroom consists of the beaches, dunes, woods, marshes, bogs, swamps, and ponds of the National Seashore. The N.E.E.D. (National Environmental Education Development) Academy is run by the Dennis-Yarmouth, Falmouth, and Monomoy schools, which send all their fifth grade classes--one at a time. The program was established as a Collaborative in 1974, and hosts between 750 and 1,000 students each school year for their 5 day-4 night environmental education experience.

Responsibilities: Teacher-Naturalists lead 3 hikes/lessons per day for their teaching group.  Teacher-Naturalists develop and facilitate experiential lessons based on the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks.  Lessons are centered on the local environments (Beach & Dune, Dune Forest, Kettlehole Pond, Saltmarsh, Freshwater Swamps) and history (Indigenous Wampanoag and the Mayflower Pilgrims, Shipwrecks & U.S. Lifesaving Service).  Lessons also include: Nightwalk, Group Dynamics, and Pizza Making.   Teacher/Naturalists are responsible on a rotating basis for helping with meal preparation and serving, bedtime duties, group supervision during short bus trips to various natural and historical areas of the outer Cape, and the overall daily care and maintenance of the facility.

Work week is Monday 8 am through Friday 3 pm.  Residential weeks: each Teacher/Naturalist has one day (9:30-4:30) and one evening (after 7 pm) off during the work week.  Day programs weeks: work hours are 8 am to 5 pm. Weekends are free.

Qualifications: B.S. or equivalent experience  required.   Current CPR & First Aid certification.  Love of being outdoors in all kinds of weather on the great outer beach of the Cape Cod National Seashore and ability to inspire the same in others.  Experience in teaching, natural history interpretation, marine science, and/or general ecology strongly recommended.  Experience with youth, residential education, and facilitating team building preferred.  Candidates with certification in Wilderness first-aid or currently holding a CDL are strongly encouraged to apply.  

How to apply:

Tell me who you are, what you've done so far, and why you want to live on the outer beach with a rotating cast of 5th graders from Oct-June... in other words:  cover letter, resume, and the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of three references to:

Eleanor Moody, Director

NEED Academy
PO Box 896
Truro, MA 02666-0896

e-mail: moodye@dy-regional.k12.ma.us