End dates

Job Opportunities

Our team of administrators, environmental educators, naturalists, and interns are united by a passion for promoting environmental education and stewardship.

Jobs are posted as they become available. Summer positions are typically posted by early December.

Please check our Internships page for additional upcoming opportunities. Thank you for your interest in a career with the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies!

Because we begin our seasons with ~2 weeks of paid training, we are firm with our start date. For the summer season (June-August), we can usually negotiate end dates provided the discussion happens as early as possible. Our spring season (April-May) is short and very busy, so it is important that applicants are able to commit to the whole season.

Our staff positions are for people over the age of 18. Our traveling internship, called the Community Coastal Experience, is also for people over 18. For those under 18, we have paid High School Internships.

We've tried to capture some of our seasonal positions' nuance in our titles, but these words may mean different things to you. The following is a basic explanation of each role to help you understand each job description:

Naturalist - This role typically involves more interpretation for guests, especially adults, but may include kids. This often looks like leading programs like guided educational hikes or tide-pooling. For some positions this may include collecting basic scientific monitoring data, and/or more hours maintaining facilities (i.e. trail maintenance and updating interpretive displays).

Educator - This role works primarily with kids on our environmentally-themed camps, field trips, and programs. This involves teaching about local ecology in a very hands-on, place- and inquiry-based way. While leading these programs, staff are responsible for keeping kids safe and attending to basic needs and behavior support. In the case of our overnight camps, staff are the primary point person for camper needs.

Naturalist Educators - This role leads our educational summer camps and attends to youths' needs and behavior support. They also lead nature tours for adults and youth, and may assist with monitoring and data collection.

Camp Counselor - This role works specifically with our Day Camp, where staff facilitate environmental education and exploration programs while attending to young camper's needs. The title of "counselor" reflects the importance of fun, play, social emotional learning, and behavior support.

Support Counselor - This role is specifically for Day Camp and is focused on behavior support. See job description for more details.

Co-Leads - This role is specifically for the Community Coastal Experience. See job description for more details.

Coordinator - This role not only helps lead our programs, but also coordinates their program's functions and/or associated facility. They also supervise their programs' staff.

Coastal Studies provides furniture, basic appliances, and other sundries for a functioning home. For more specifics, see each locations' details below. Our housing units are the "Office Apartments," "North Wynn," and the "A-Frame." The quality of different items may vary, as many are secondhand and/or see ample use from season-to-season.

Once hired, staff who need housing fill out a survey and answer questions about their roommate preferences. Our staff pair roommates based on these responses. We try to avoid housing staff from the same program together, but acknowledge that is not always possible. Single rooms are rarely possible and not guaranteed. We try to facilitate housing check-ins to create a space for staff to address needs.

Year round staff (both remote and in-person) are not eligible for CACS-provided housing. If someone stays on staff beyond October programs, or takes on a year-round position, they must find their own housing.

We are unable to house anyone not directly hired to work with our organization. This includes partners, spouses, and children. Pets are not permitted in CACS housing. For family or pet-friendly housing, we recommend looking online for rental units in Homer.

Office Apartment:

The Office Apartment is located on the second floor of our Headquarters in "downtown" Homer, and is within walking distance to shops, restaurants, groceries, and other amenities. There are three bedrooms, which typically house two or three staff members each. Each room has 2-3 beds, desks, and various shelves and dressers to store belongings. The apartment also has one full bathroom, a laundry room, general storage space for program supplies, and a small combined kitchen and living room.

All bedding and towels are provided. Kitchen appliances include a fridge, freezer, electric stove, oven, microwave, toaster, dishwasher, coffee pot, and hot water kettle. It's fully stocked with utensils, dish-ware, and cooking supplies.

Sometimes staff come up to the storage space in the apartment to access program…