Motivation

 "In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand and we will understand only what we are taught"-Babe Dioum 

Now that I have some housekeeping posts out of the way, I am excited to get started on the purpose of this blog. For my first "real" post I would like to focus on something that is important in my opinion for the new professional naturalist to get an understanding of: motivation. My hope for this post is that it will give us an opportunity to get to know each other a bit better as well as provide an initial stepping stone concept to cover we begin our exploration of environmental education. 

Dictionary.com defines motivation as providing a reason to act in a certain way. There can be many reasons to get into environmental education and it can really vary from person to person. I want to first tell you about my motivation to get into environmental education. I remember this like it was yesterday. I was sitting in lecture on my first day of Wildlife Management class as a freshman when the professor told the class something I will never forget: “Wildlife management is just as much the management of people as it is the management of wildlife.” I had an inkling from that point that education would be somewhere in my future but I could never have guessed how drastically it would shape my life. After trying my hand at a lot of different areas of the wildlife management field, I came to the conclusion that for me, environmental education was where I belonged. There is no better opportunity to reach out to individuals and connect with them in a way to instill the same love of nature that I have. At least I haven't found one yet!

One of the fallacies that I can see new professionals falling into is the thought that EE might be an easy field to get into. I have struggled for many a night with the thoughts of the future and how I can get my foot in the door for meaningful employment. If I wanted to get that full-time opportunity right out of college I probably would have been better off trying to be a lawyer, doctor, or engineer. I'm not saying isn’t possible but the prospects of getting a well-paying job right off the bat is very slim. When the most of the places of employment are non-profit and funded by grants and donations, it can be difficult to find for them to offer competitive wages. Is it possible to land the full-time gig? Sure. Is it likely? No. So to start off, it seems like an endless road of internships, volunteering, and seasonal work. This is the unfortunate situation the EE field has worked its way into and in my opinion it's the young naturalists that suffer. And unfortunately I don't foresee this trend ending any time soon...

That being said, EE is indeed a rewarding field if you are looking for more than just economic reward. Going into EE has given me the best opportunity to reach a wide audience that I can teach to about what I really care about: nature. It has given me an outlet to share my fascination of the outdoors while having an office that is more often outside than inside. It has given me the opportunity to meet countless number of amazing individuals have spent their lives living what I hope to teach to to the future generation. There really is no better way to build an environmentally conscience society then instilling a love for the land in the heart of a child.

Whatever your motivation is for getting into environmental education, embrace it. Without a purpose to dedicate to this field is daunting to break into. Keep on fighting the good fight and let me know what motivates you in the comments below :)