Growing up, people always ask kids “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Being a severely indecisive person, and a worrier by nature, I never had a good answer for this question. What if I picked the wrong career at age four and I regretted it? I come from a family of educators. Both of my parents are teachers. My brother is a teacher. My sister worked as an educator for a number of years. Even though I never knew what I wanted to do when I grew up, I always knew I wanted to do my own thing.
Despite being determined to not be a teacher, I constantly found myself teaching. Maybe it’s because I grew up around it, but it seemed to come naturally to me at a young age. My first memory of thinking “hey this teaching thing isn’t too bad” was in fifth grade. I participated in a program called “Science for Kids” where fifth graders would travel to the classrooms of younger students and help them with a science activity. I remember sitting in those rooms as a kid watching the teacher make the impossible happen. I was so excited to be on the other side, knowing that it wasn’t magic, but instead, science! That teacher would go on to offer me my first job, where I got to help him with science camp over the summer. Over those years, he taught me so much about how to engage kids, how to overcome challenges, but most importantly, he taught me that “science is fun!” And despite my best efforts, I fell in love with teaching kids about science.
In the years to come, I would aspire to be an actor, a musician, a doctor, a copy editor, a band teacher, and countless other things. At the same time, I was creating my own science curriculum to teach at a summer program. I was a music major, but applying for jobs teaching a science camp at the Natural History Museum. Eventually I came to my senses. I loved science and I loved teaching. I changed my major to environmental science, and I rediscovered so many of the things that drew me to science in the first place. I was able to be outdoors and enjoy all of the beauty the world has to offer. I got to play in the dirt, something most people give up once they graduate from the sandbox, but I didn’t have to. I could identify the plants and animals around me while I was hiking, and I could explain what had formed the mountains and valleys that I was exploring.
So even though I now know that I love science, and specifically science education, when I was offered the Education and Outreach Assistant position at Green Mountain Conservation Group, I was a bit hesitant to accept it even though the description felt like a natural fit. I had originally pursued AmeriCorps as a way of getting some hands-on experience after completing a significant portion of my degree online. But after years of trying to stay away from education, I ended up following in my family’s footsteps. And I’m glad I did, because there is something about sharing the joy of scientific discovery with others that makes the discovery all the more magical.
In all the years of answering the dreaded “what do you want to be when you grow up” question, I would have never guessed that I would be in New Hampshire, a thousand miles from everyone I know, devoting a year of my life to AmeriCorps service. But so far it has been amazing. Every day I get to put on a different hat, and explore science from a different lens. One day I get to put on my scientist hat and drive all around the watershed to stick my hands in freezing cold water to do RIVERS sampling. Another day I’m back playing in the sandbox, experimenting with different methods of separating microplastics from sediment. Some days I’m a conservationist, monitoring easement land and ensuring the protection of land within the watershed. And the next day I get to be in a classroom, playing guitar and singing, and teaching a group of three and four year olds about animals in winter. And one question I am never going to ask them is “what do you want to be when you grow up” because what I’m learning is that sometimes you don’t have to choose.
Bethany is a full-year member serving as the Education and Outreach Assistant at Green Mountain Conservation Group. She graduate from University of Minnesota Twin Cities with a degree in Environmental Sciences, Policy, and Management and minors in Soil Science and Music. Learn more about Bethany here!