Training the Next Generation of Environmental Educators
by Brian Magness
Eric Newburger and Beth Newburger-Schwartz practice shark tagging with bananas substituting for sharks, a field trip activity designed by SERC education staff and interns. (Credit: Karen McDonald/SERC)
Over the past six years, the Newburger-Schwartz Family Foundation has played a key role in SERC’s Education Program by sponsoring 18 education internships. The interns have designed and implemented new teaching modules, led hands-on demonstrations, and provided educational experiences for the thousands of schoolchildren who come to SERC for field trips each year. When COVID struck, the interns helped create interactive virtual field trips, empowering students to do hands-on science closer to home. These interns, mostly undergraduates, are also gaining valuable real-life experience towards their environmental science teaching careers.
The Foundation, founded by Beth Newburger-Schwartz, the late Richard Schwartz and their children, has a stated mission “to foment a more rational discourse,” according to board member Eric Newburger.
“SERC's Education Intern Program is about training the next generation of environmental scientists and science communicators—both the interns themselves and the young people who attend the programs they facilitate,” Newburger said. “Our board members have been very pleased that our gifts are able to have such a long-lasting impact.”
The next cohort of Foundation-sponsored interns arrived at SERC this spring. These 12-week paid internships will help SERC launch its post-COVID, in-person education programs, and provide informative experiences, both for the interns and the many children that will take part in this Smithsonian program.