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Volunteer Information

Practicums & Internships

Groundwater well monitoring at Gearhart Fen Preserve.

"Practicum: supervised, practical, hands-on application of theory previously studied in the classroom."

The Nature Conservancy is pleased to offer a limited number of Oregon practicum and internships opportunities. If your environmental studies or ecology program offers you school credit for applied, hands-on experience, consider pursuing your academic goals with us, working with our ecologists and other professional staff.

Students at all levels (including associates, undergraduates, graduates, etc.) are welcome to contact us. While the majority of our practicum students conduct outdoor field projects during the spring and summer, we do offer outdoor placements for the fall and winter months as well as some indoor, office-based placements.

The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive.

If you believe your interests and ours are compatible, please contact us so we can explore whether a mutually beneficial partnership is possible. (Regrettably, placement with our Oregon office is not guaranteed.)

Past practicum students have made incredibly valuable contributions to The Nature Conservancy through their work and have used their experience to further their academic and professional careers in the environmental field.

If our goals are well-suited, we will work with you in tailoring placements to complement your studies. A few examples of past placements include projects conducting invertebrate, amphibian, and avian inventories and surveys on Conservancy preserve lands throughout Oregon and projects researching and mapping the abundance of invasive, exotic species.

The Nature Conservancy is not able to offer a stipend for these positions. If you are interested in paid seasonal fieldwork, please visit employment section of The Nature Conservancy's web site, nature.org/careers, or call our National Job Hotline at (703) 247-3721.

[NOTE: Please get in touch with us at least two months before you would like to begin a placement if pursuing an Oregon practicum through The Nature Conservancy interests you. If you and another student share compatible interests, you may want to consider collaborating on a cooperative project.]

To receive more information about practicum opportunities at The Nature Conservancy in Oregon, please contact:

Molly Dougherty
Director of Volunteer Programs
mdougherty@tnc.org

c/o The Nature Conservancy in Oregon
821 SE 14th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97214-2537
(503) 802-8100

And don't forget to also check our volunteer classified opportunities!

Current Openings:

There are currently no open practicum positions, but please contact us with your ideas!

The Nature Conservancy is committed to diversity in the workplace, with particular emphasis on areas in which minorities have been historically under-represented in the environmental professions. We strongly encourage African-Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Asian/Pacific Islanders and Native Americans to contact us about these opportunities.

THE NATURE CONSERVANCY IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ORGANIZATION