Urban Ecology and Sustainability Educator Baltimore, MD

About Living Classrooms

Founded in Baltimore in 1985, Living Classrooms Foundation is a Baltimore – Washington, DC nonprofit that disrupts the cycle of poverty and helps our community become safer, stronger, and healthier by building skills for life. Living Classrooms inspires children, youth, and adults to achieve their potential through hands‑on education, workforce development, health and wellness, and violence prevention programming.

Living Classrooms has developed a distinctive competency in experiential learning – learning by direct experience – or what we call “learning by doing.” We utilize our environmental campuses, athletic fields, community centers, and historic ships as “living classrooms.” We work with one child, one teen, one adult, and one family at a time to identify existing barriers toward success and provide resources and opportunities to help each person reach their full potential, thus supporting stronger family units and more resilient communities.

While each of our program areas is distinct, in combination they create a powerful synergy. Our maritime heritage sites create opportunities for employment training. Our education programs use our environmental and maritime resources as living learning laboratories. Our employability programs create stronger communities that are better prepared to exercise environmental stewardship.

Baltimore Urban Gardening with Students (BUGS) is an after‑school and summer environmental education enrichment program serving students in grades 6‑8 at The Crossroads School, both Living Classrooms Foundation programs. This program is designed to help Crossroads students outside for educational and recreational programming to strengthen their environmental literacy.

BUGS is an outdoor environmental education program that focuses on the urban environment. Students at The Crossroads School learn about gardening, urban ecology, the watershed, environmental and social justice issues, sustainability, and cooking and nutrition through STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) style learning. BUGS complements the school day and gives Crossroads students the opportunity to develop and apply new knowledge and skills to real‑world situations relating to the environment around them through hands‑on activities and project‑based learning.

The mission of the BUGS Program is to provide purposeful, nature‑based education to youth in their local environment, encouraging them to understand, respect, connect to, and enjoy the natural world around them.

As part of the Living Classrooms Foundation, BUGS students are “Learning by Doing,” and using the manmade, natural, and maritime environments as "living classrooms." BUGS provides students with meaningful opportunities to apply academic and social skills and allows time and space for students to grow as individuals and as a community influenced by the world around them.

This educator will teach about the local urban environment, including ecology; the health of the Chesapeake Bay, other local waterways, surrounding habitats and the greater Chesapeake Bay watershed; innovative practices that promote the health of the local environment; the impact of human actions on the environment; protecting, restoring, and creating new native habitats in an urban setting; climate change and climate resilience in regard to human spaces and natural habitats;

and environmental sustainability and sustainable living. The educator will work with students to analyze urban environmental and social justice issues and develop plans to implement student‑led stewardship action projects or conservation activities that benefit the health and well‑being of people, plants and animals, and the surrounding environment.

This position follows a typical Monday‑Friday work week but requires occasional weekend work. The position reports to the BUGS Program Director.

• Participate in the BUGS Annual Student‑Run Farmer’s Market, which is always held on a Saturday.
• Caring for the flock of chickens maintained on campus, including coop maintenance.
• Plan and…