Baltimore Connecting Children to Nature (BCCN) Strategy 2: Green Career Exploration to connect youth to jobs and nature.
The goal of BCCN Strategy 2 is to improve youth’s relationship with nature by supporting their engagement and ability to ‘learn and earn’ via green career training programs. Building upon existing nature-based partners, expanding sites with nature experiences, and assessing the quality of experiences in nature, the strategy looks to increase opportunities for teenagers to further their grasp and understanding of green careers, while building a basis of memorable and positive nature experiences that older teens can pass on to younger children.
What is a “Green Job” or a “Nature-Based Job”?
According to Baltimore’s 2019 Sustainability Plan, Green jobs are jobs that support the sustainability goals of supporting people, the planet, and our prosperity all at one time. Through BCCN, we are focusing specifically on “nature-based jobs.”
Green Jobs: Jobs that benefit, preserve, or restore the environment or its natural resources. They can exist in traditional sectors including manufacturing, agriculture, and construction, or in new, emerging sectors such as renewable energy or energy efficiency.
Nature-Based Jobs: Nature-based jobs are a subset of Green Jobs where people spend over 50% of their time outside in nature. Nature spaces can be naturally occurring or curated by humans, but most importantly include flora and/or fauna.
Connecting to Green and Nature-Based Jobs in Baltimore
Click below to download a short guide to training programs and other resources for green jobs in Baltimore City:
YouthWorks Nature-Based Jobs Site Webinar:
Each year, the City of Baltimore supports summer jobs for young Baltimoreans through YouthWorks. The BCCN team hosted a webinar for environmental and nature-based organizations on how to become a YouthWorks host site in 2020. If you are interested in hiring youth over the summer and providing them with fruitful experiences working in nature, you can view the full recording of the webinar here.
Baltimore Green Careers speakers:
Baltimore City Public Schools’ Career and Technology Education (CTE) program hosts a monthly speaker series called CTE Fridays. In 2020, the CCCN team helped put together panel centered around Green Careers with local partners working in a variety of green jobs. Watch the recording of the CTE Fridays: Green Careers Panel here.
YouthWorks also hosts a speaker series called Bright Future Fridays, and in summer 2021 we worked to help place Green Careers speakers on each of their weekly career panels. In addition to other amazing speakers who were on each panel, you can hear from amazing professionals from the Master Gardeners Program at the University of Maryland, BioHabitats, the Parks & People Foundation and the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Baltimore City Department of Recreation & Parks, InDiGo (Inward Discovery Grows Outdoors), and the Baltimore Compost Collective and Hon’s Honey.