“If you have an interest in the Environmental Education field…this is a great way to get your foot in the door. You can test out this career and see if this is for you.”
Meet Luke Antonia
The 2021-2022 Bridging Mountains Environmental Education Coordinator
Testing Out A Career
Luke planting cottonwood saplings with international high school students on Ute Mountain Ute land.
Curiosity is a driving factor for many when choosing a career. Internships and service projects, like AmeriCorps, allow us to “test” out roles and gain experiences that propel us to the next place in our journey. For the past two years, Mountain Studies Institute has partnered with the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education (CAEE) to bring AmeriCorps members to serve on our Community Science Team.
Luke Antonia spent the past year embedded in the Mountain Studies Institute Community Science Team as the Bridging Mountains Environmental Education Coordinator, which is an Environmental Education Corps position through Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education (CAEE).
Led by the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education (CAEE), the Environmental Education Corps (eeCorps) AmeriCorps Program places AmeriCorps members at organizations throughout Colorado to focus on increasing environmental literacy for PreK-12 students and implementing the goals outlined in the Colorado Environmental Education Plan. eeCorps works directly with teachers, schools, and environmental education providers to support them in expanding the reach and increasing the impact of environmental education programming while providing access to equitable learning experiences for all PreK-12 students. eeCorps members provide direct service to improve outcomes in environmental stewardship and education, full-filling AmeriCorps’s mission to improve lives and foster civic engagement all across the country.
Luke's term ends in late July, and we sat down with him recently to reflect on the lessons learned and advice he'd give to the next intern.
Tell us, how did you spend your time at MSI on the Community Science Team?
I was the Environmental Education Coordinator with the Community Science team. I spent my time reaching out to teachers to set up field trips and lessons mostly centering around water quality.
What is one lesson or key highlight you’ve learned in your time?
Jack Purcell (left) and Peter Kondrat (right) hold out an exuvia they found left on a rock.
I value the ability to blend work with students and with other MSI teams. One key highlight is the recent salmonfly monitoring program - a project I worked on with our water team, who provides the research and science behind our place-based water quality lessons. The volunteer monitoring was initiated when students that whom I’d previously worked found the first signs of their emergence. I really enjoyed being able to combine community engagement with the monitoring component. It was really special to me that some of our students helped start the process and were really interested in what we were going to do from that point forward proved to be a great impromptu lesson on salmonflies and their importance for our understanding of water quality. Then, having volunteers help us out once we took our samples down at the river the following week tied it all together nicely. It was such a great start to the beginning of this citizen science program that we now have baseline data for and will hopefully continue to collect in the years to come.
How did you make a difference through your service and time at MSI? What did you accomplish? (We know you did a lot!!)
Luke and the Community Science Team at the 2022 San Juan Resilience Youth Summit
One big event was our San Juan Resilience Youth Summit that I helped facilitate. It gave students an opportunity to design projects around environmental resiliency and present them in front of their peers and audience members. It was back in person this year and went quite smoothly with so many outstanding student presentations!
Why should people apply to an AmeriCorp position?
Being an AmeriCorp volunteer gives you the opportunity to try out something you aren’t certain about. If you have an interest in the Environmental Education field…this is a great way to get your foot in the door. You can test out this career and see if this is for you. It is a good way to sample if you want to go into this realm.
There are all these subtleties, balancing work with AmeriCorps, and at times can feel isolating. Knowing that there are other people doing the same thing and connecting with them is helpful. As soon as I connected with my AmeriCorps cohort, I realized we were going through a lot of the same things. It was helpful to have that shared experience.
What advice would you give to the next eeCorps?
“You have a lot of freedom to do what you want to do and there are teammates who can support you.”
To take initiative. There are a lot of moments without guidance. We have a really supportive team. You have a lot of freedom to do what you want to do and there are teammates who can support you. Go for it - bring your ideas to the table and roll forward with them. Otherwise, you’ll be waiting around. For example, in the winter with less programming, it can be overwhelming if you don’t have specific ideas or goals to take action on. Make goals for yourself.
What will you do when this position ends in July?
Luke at a event with Saint Columba students identifying benthic macro invertebrates.
A few certification courses - Wilderness EMT and a few of those. And climbing full-time for a while. Hopefully, I will work with and help in some capacity the Access Fund in a Climbing Ambassador role - which would bring in components of environmental education.
The experience has made me think of all the different steps I could take - all my interests and passions. Education will always be a part of what I am doing in some capacity. I really enjoy that side of this position. I also really enjoy all the time I get to research, like helping document the salmonflies or taking samples with the Water Team. I would like to pursue research, too.
Apply to be the 2022-2023 Environmental Education Corps, Bridging Mountains Environmental Education Coordinator
Do you enjoy working with students and in the outdoors? Do you want to gain valuable experiences and professional skills in environmental education? If your answer is yes, and want to learn more, then the CAEE's Environmental Education Corps (eeCorps) might be the right opportunity for you! Mountain Studies Institute is currently seeking the 2022-2023 Environmental Education Corps, Bridging Mountains Environmental Education Coordinator. The position is full-time and starts August 22, 2022, and ends July 28, 2023.
For information and to apply, please go here.
