4-H Aquaponics Program Internship

Sorry, this Internship opportunity has been filled.

The Intern will learn about how UMaine Extension 4-H is teaching kids complex scientific ideas and will help to develop hands-on skills important in many career paths in aquatic animal husbandry. The Intern will also gain knowledge and skills in educational program evaluation. They will also be able to choose an aspect of the 4-H Aquaponics program to help create teaching resources in order to expand the reach of the program.

The Intern will help to expand the 4-H Aquaponics Program to increase the number of students that can participate over the summer as well as introduce this program to schools throughout Maine. UMaine Extension 4-H has been including evaluations to the program to help refine and identify skills sets students gain throughout the program. This information will help seek additional funding to expand this program. Having an intern help with the data collection and analyses will allow the program to use this data for the Summer of 2022. 

In addition, UMaine Extension 4-H is also working to create more resources that will allow more self-paced progress through the program, which can make the program more accessible to teachers. The Intern would be able to aid in creation of these resources.

This is an excellent project for an undergraduate student interested in science education. The Intern will learn about how UMaine Extension 4-H is teaching kids complex scientific ideas and help to develop hands-on skills important in many career paths in aquatic animal husbandry. The Intern will also gain knowledge and skills sets in educational program evaluation.

The overarching goal of the Internship:

  • To collect and analyze evaluation data and to increase the virtual resources for the 4-H Aquaponics Program.

The 3 main learning tasks for the Internship are:

The Intern will:

  1. familiarize themselves with the various educational methods used in the 4-H Aquaponics Program,
  2. read literature and have mentorship in methods of educational program evaluation, and
  3. choose an area with the program and create new virtual teaching resources.

The Intern will need to learn the evaluation tools, data collection methods, and analytical methods used in educational program evaluation. The student will work directly with Scarlett Tudor (UMaine’s Aquaculture Research Institute), Carla Scocchi (UMaine Extension 4-H), and Melissa Malmstedt (UMaine Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research), on all aspects of this project. Assistant Extension Professor Vanessa Klein will help guide the evaluation methodology used.

The Intern will be expected to work in the Aquaculture Research Institute office suite with Scarlett Tudor. The Intern will also participate in weekly zoom meetings throughout the year. These meetings will be used to set goals and objectives for the following week.

To apply for our Internships, please visit UMaine’s Career Center (Career Link). If you have not created an account before, please know you will need to use your umaine.edu email. Once you have created an account, search for UMaine Cooperative Extension and our internship opportunities should appear.