Educator and Raptor Care Specialist
The Educator and Raptor Care Specialist is a year-round, full-time position that reports directly to the Director of Education. This position requires advanced knowledge and the consistent exercise of discretion and independent judgment, including a solid understanding of the scope of raptor conservation science and education activities at Hawk Mountain and raptor husbandry skills. Excellent verbal and written communication skills are a must. The position combines education across a wide variety of ages and environmental education-based topics with a background in raptor husbandry, care and handling. The ideal candidate will have experience teaching in both indoor and outdoor classroom settings, an awareness of our local-to-global programs and raptor conservation mission.
Primary duties include, but are not limited to, developing new programming content about Hawk Mountain’s global raptor conservation science for diverse audiences and age groups including our conservation science and education training programs, general public, school programs, and Raptors Up Close programs. The specialist has direct responsibility for part time staff, volunteers, trainees, and interns at Hawk Mountain.
COMPETENCIES AND ATTRIBUTES
Educator: A skilled educator from classroom to field inspiring education excellence.
Communication: Highly effective communicator to include verbal, written, multimedia, and social media.
Flexibility: Demonstrated professionalism and ability to seize opportunities while respecting organizational goals as well as its chain of command.
Motivation: A self-starter with a genuine passion for raptor conservation science and natural history while promoting the work of Hawk Mountain to all audiences.
Curricula: Understands how to write lesson plans, curricula, and pedagogy.
Solution-oriented: Projects a positive attitude and helps to solve problems.
Teamwork: Integrates science with education.
Naturalist: Demonstrated ability as a field naturalist who shares a high level of enthusiasm for natural history with patrons, staff and volunteers.
Attendance: Regular and predictable attendance.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
Experience working with birds of prey preferred including general husbandry, care and maintenance of enclosures, and live raptor programs.
A charismatic teacher with strong verbal presentation skills who has taught a variety of ages with excellent group management and safety skills to ensure a fun and safe visitor experience.
Wilderness First Aid and CPR certification or higher a plus.
A strong understanding of Hawk Mountain and its raptor conservation mission and programs.
Organized and proficient with administrative tasks related to creating education lesson plans and content, program registration, and coordination.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills including scientific writing, general interest articles, film editing, and social media posts.
Highly organized and flexible, and grasps the goals of Hawk Mountain’s education program.
This position requires a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction, specifically, a Bachelor’s degree with experience and interest in conservation science, research and education.
PRIMARY DUTIES
Responsible for ongoing programming responsibilities both on and off site.
Prepare curricula, training materials, and lesson plans.
Manage, teach, mentor, recruit and/or encourage trainees, volunteers, and others on how to do education programming to Hawk Mountain’s rigorous education standards.
Prepare and distribute educational materials and/or lesson plans that help to spread our ongoing research and raptor conservation mission and the Sanctuary’s science-education programs.
Share Hawk Mountain education resources as appropriate at the direction of the conservation science and education directors at key education conferences and as funding allow.
Develop partnerships to augment Hawk Mountain education programs.
Setup and break down of classrooms and other teaching spaces and organization of teaching materials physically and virtually. Ability to lift 50 lbs.
Responsible to be a primary teacher of various programmatic areas as outlined in the education plan.
Set high standards for raptor care and husbandry and ensure the raptor and animal ambassador program is utilized to engage our various audiences and integrated into our leadership trainee program.
Disseminate raptor care information among staff and trainees to ensure program continuity.
Must be able to hike two miles over rocky terrain and work weekends and occasional nights.
Other duties as assigned.
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and will not discriminate against an applicant or employee based on race, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, sex, age, physical or mental disability, veteran or military status, genetic information, sexual orientation, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state, or local law.
