Workforce Development
Delaware Sea Grant is continually seeking new ways to help people improve their job skills
Preparing tomorrow’s coastal workforce
Opportunities for workforce development in topics within Sea Grant’s mission exist across the state—students cannot choose careers they do not know exist. From middle and high school programming to 2-year institutions and 4-year institutions, Sea Grant can provide activities, curriculum, and even technical training to students during the critical years when career choices are being made. For those already in careers related to our coastal resources, such as graduate students and science teachers, Delaware Sea Grant offers educational opportunities tailored to their professional development needs
Workforce Development Projects
Coastal Resilience Design Studio
A partnership between the Delaware Sea Grant College Program, the University of Delaware Sustainable Coastal Communities Initiative, and the University of Delaware Landscape Architecture Program, the Coastal Resilience Design Studio provides undergraduate and graduate students from academic institutions across Delaware with a hands-on, community-engaged learning experience that provides real-world solutions to many of the pressing challenges facing Delaware’s coastal communities. Click here to learn more
Green Infrastructure Partnership with Delaware Technical and Community College
Delaware Sea Grant College Program has teamed with Delaware Technical and Community College for a professional development opportunity focused on Coastal Green Infrastructure Design and Construction. Students participating in the program focus on green infrastructure projects throughout coastal watersheds, including at estuarine sites and at freshwater ecosystems in the headwater regions.
The paid internship allows students to learn professional design and construction skills for coastal green infrastructure projects. Read more about the partnership in this news story. The internship is offered every fall at the Stanton campus through 2023. The internship will be offered at the Georgetown campus in Spring 2022 and Spring 2023.
Offered next in the fall of 2021, the internship consists of seven one-day field-based internship experiences. Internship experiences will occur at different locations within a one-hour radius of the DelTech-Stanton campus. Students will be responsible for their own transportation. The experiences will occur every other Friday during the 15-week semester and are anticipated to last approximately 10 hours, including travel time.
Topics will include:
- Living shoreline design-build
- Riparian buffer functions and installation
- Rain garden design-build
- Native plant nursery - care and management of native plants
Field days will include instruction and “learning-by-doing” fieldwork, which will consist of manual labor, such as planting vegetation, carrying bagged oyster shell, watering plants, etc.
The last week of the semester, students will be required to participate in a mock job interview and resume review. Mock interviews are intended to help students prepare to enter the workforce in this exciting, emerging field, and will occur at the DelTech-Stanton campus.
Student interns will be paid $15 per hour for full participation in the internship program and will be reimbursed for travel costs.
Students will be selected from the following degree programs at DelTech-Stanton:
- Civil Engineering Technology
- Environmental Engineering Technology
- Surveying and Geomatics Option
- Construction Management Technology
- Energy Management Technology
- Biological Sciences
For more information, please contact Heidi Gurdo: Department Chair for the Architectural, Civil, Construction Management, Environmental, and GIS Engineering Technology Programs (hgurdo@dtcc.edu).
The Green Jobs Program
The Green Jobs program is a 6-week employment program for Wilmington residents that provides participants with hands-on outdoor environmental work, career exploration, exposure to environmental issues, and a mentoring component. DESG serves as one of the partners for the program, hosting activities in both Wilmington and Lewes, including getting an up-close tour of UD’s 2-megawatt wind turbine, as well as Delaware’s burgeoning oyster aquaculture industry.
To learn more about the Green Jobs Program, check out this news story on the attendees’ experience working with DESG, or visit the official website.
Educator Training
Hands-on Professional Development
Delaware Sea Grant provides a variety of professional development opportunities for teachers in K-12 classrooms and informal educators at non-profit institutions and similar organizations. Learn more about DESG work in teacher development in our Education section.
Climate Change Education Training
Delaware Sea Grant works with others in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including the Chesapeake and Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserves, to provide training to K-12 teachers in how to educate their students about climate change.
At the 2019 Climate Academy, participants had four to five weeks of online training classes to give them a background on climate science and climate change. At in-person trainings on the University of Delaware’s Lewes campus, they continued that education but also learned how to conduct investigations with their students, collect data, and work with their students to come up with solutions based upon a Meaningful Watershed Education Experiences (MWEE), which is designed to have students identify an issue, investigate it, develop an action project and then engage in that project.
In 2020, the partners expanded their offerings to a multiple-day Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference (MACCEC), held virtually. The conference succeeded in the new format and will be held again this year. Learn more about the 2021 MACCEC.