Where should I look for a job?

One of the most common questions I get from students around this time of year is “Where should I look for a job?”

The question they actually are asking is “where ONLINE should I look for a job?”, and it’s the wrong question.  The vast majority of jobs for students are filled informally, without a search.

I always have extra work, and when I manage to have money + work that needs to be done, I usually tend to hire people I know–either a good past student, or someone recommended by a friend.

For full-time jobs, the question is a bit more relevant, but still, applying online doesn’t yield the results that using your network of contacts will.  If I happen to know someone involved in a search, and I send them a copy of your recommendation letter directly….yeah, that immediately moves your resume up to the top of the pile.

So, before I give you my list of places online to look at:  Let me ask, what is the ratio of time you are spending pasting your resume online to the amount of time spent chatting with your friends and professional contacts about where you want to go?

My favorite places to look for Ecological/Environmental type jobs:

• Ecolog-l (includes graduate assistantships)
• Society of Conservation Biology (includes graduate assistantships)
• Student Conservation Association
• Environmental Education Jobs
• Audubon Society Jobs
• Nature Conservancy Jobs
• National Association for Interpretation (sadly, all jobs require a login)
• NatureServe
• Society for Plant Biology (includes graduate assistantships)
• Studentjobs.gov (The feds consider you a “student” up to a year after you graduate!)
• BirdJobs
• Organization of Biological Field Stations

Two other things to try:

1. There are a lot of new job indexes that basically work by harvesting other websites. Indeed.com is a good example of that type of service.
2. Don’t forget to look at local university and state websites! While the funding may be shaky long term, for those starting out in the job market, there are usually lots of opportunities.

Have I missed an important resource? Please suggest it in the comments!
[Note: I will be especially harsh on spammers for this post--if you are suggesting a link, it needs to relate specifically to finding job postings in environmental science/conservation]

Additional Career Advice: 

• Spellcheck is not your fiend friend
• How not to write a cover letter
• Hints for Academic Job Seekers
• How not to send a reference letter
• Dear Parent….

Raptor Lesson Plans!

Ooooh…just stumbled over this and thought I would share. The University of Minnesota Raptor Center has a section of lesson plans related to raptors! I especially liked the ones involving math and graphing of data.

Check it out!

[thanks to MikeBaird for the photo!]

New issue of Evolution: Education and Outreach!

The latest issue of EEO is out!

This issue has several essays by teachers in public schools.  I was especially struck by this one:

I am a special education teacher in a middle school, though, and not an education policy expert or cabinet level economic advisor. Although I care deeply about the future of our planet and our nation’s economy, my most immediate concerns are about the students in my class and how to get them interested in science. The big reasons for incorporating evolution more coherently into science curricula outlined above, however true, carry little weight for a bored seventh grader with minimal interest in science and no desire to pursue biology as a career. There are other reasons why evolution should be taught as the unifying theory of biology that it is: it is a truthful representation of what we have learned through investigation, it is intuitive and evident all around us, it ties otherwise disparate units of study together, and, most importantly, it is a great story….

And this, to me, is the best reason of all to teach evolution: it is such a great story. As Darwin himself famously said, “There is grandeur in this view of life.” Students need their teachers to help them get excited about the material they are learning. Rote memorization and chapter-by-chapter examinations of what is happening outside the window may work for advanced placement students, but they are rarely effective for special needs or at-risk kids. Students with a limited interest in science and a diminishing dedication to their education need more than to be told what they must learn to pass some state exam. They need to have their interest captured, to have their imaginations sparked. What better way to do this than by tying all aspects of the curriculum together with a unifying theme? Evolution is a story, after all. It is the story of what we have learned so far through scientific investigation about who we are, where we came from, and how we fit in to the world. It explains so much. It is so evident. It is so testable and provable. It is quickly becoming the greatest story ever told, and we should tap into its power to help our students learn.

Well done, sir!

Full Citation:
Eldredge, G. (2009). Why I Teach Evolution Evolution: Education and Outreach, 2 (3), 342-346 DOI: 10.1007/s12052-009-0160-1

BTW, Adam Goldstein has a paper in this edition…covering evolution blogging!!

Things I’ve Learned

Some random thoughts:

1. I am currently hiring for a 6 month position, no benefits, no promise of any continued employment.
We got >45 applications, and about half are from laid-off teachers in Michigan.

2. I’m still working >60hrs/week with no end in sight. I love this job, but it’s killing me.  Looking at a Federal Job in Maryland with APHIS. I think I’m probably crazy, but the prospect of a 40 hour week sounds pretty golden right now, even if I have to live in the city.

3. The apartment I’m living in right now actually has enough spiders to almost, kinda, sorta, creep me out. That should tell you something.

But…it could be worse.  At least there are no wasps!

Hopefully things will slow down in September, and I can return then.

Argh.

Well, job continues to kick my butt, so it looks like I’ll be offline for another couple of weeks. Here’s another pretty photo to brighten up the place.  This is a wonderful bee-mimic robberfly  (Asilidae) from deadmike.

You might remember them  from the  Not-A-Bee series from earlier this year.

Weekend Pretty Picture

Still behind at work, so how about you marvel at this great shot of a dragonfly by daveograve:

“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.“
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Insects + Beer = SCIENCE

There is a really fun opportunity for some participatory science this August:

“I could use your help to run a North American pilot test of an inexpensive trap for yellowjackets and hornets.  If  successful it might result in development of a unique long-term survey for this group.
I have been in correspondence with workers in the Czech Republic, Great Britain, and Northwestern North America regarding the use of traps made from plastic drink and soda bottles partially filled with beer or apple juice/cider.  These groups have been successful in trapping a variety of wasps.

We would like to see something similar tested throughout the continent,  this year we would like to get a feel for what species and situations might be most useful prior to do a larger and more statistical rigorous set of trials.  This time of year is when populations of these colonial species are at their height and thus this email to encourage you participation.

So this is where you come in.  We need you to put out a trap(s) around your house, nature center, fields, and woods for 3 weeks and then send us back your “catch.”  We will put everything together and send you back a report.

Here’s what you will need:

• Beer (The Europeans have standardized on Heineken but for this trial just use whatever is on hand)
• Apple cider or juice
• If you want try something else…go right ahead
• CLEAR Plastic soda or water bottle (take the labels off)
• String or wire

Directions

1. Put a good 3 inches of beer or cider in the bottom of the bottle
2. Keep the top of the bottle off
3. Hang the bottle (from a tree or post) about 3-4 feet off the ground….hang the bottle by the neck.
   Locations could be in any habitat with an emphasis on woodlands (which are likely have the highest species richness).
4. At the end of 3 weeks strain out your sample and mail it in via the following procedure (note the alcohol and vinegar both will preserve the specimens over the 3 weeks).

Mailing

1. Rinse specimens under cool water
2. Put into ziplock bag
3. Add a very SMALL amount of alcohol, just enough to DAMPEN them (isopropyl is fine).
4. Add a paper towel to keep any excess alcohol in place
5. Put that bag into ANOTHER zip lock bag with another paper towel
6. Put those bags into ANOTHER plastic bag and tie tightly.
7. Ship in a padded envelope or box to me along with the who, what, where below:

Data needed for each trap:

Your name
Your location (gps, mailing address, description, map)
Date Put Out
Date Taken Down
Habitat
Notes
Email address so we can contact you

That’s it, your ticket to fame is guaranteed, many thanks for the help and participation.

Sam Droege

Mail to:
USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center
BARC-EAST, BLDG 308, RM 124 10300 Balt. Ave., Beltsville, MD  20705

Sounds like fun!  Sam is a mensch, so give him a hand.

[Thanks to Quinet for the photo of drunken wasps.]

The Feather Trade

We are in the process of upgrading some materials around where I work, and as a consequence we’ve been looking for materials about birds, conservation, and the historic use of birds and bird parts in the US. I happened to stumble over this really nifty Smithsonian online exhibit:

The Feather Trade

Really interesting information!

Do you have any other resources you’d like to recommend on this topic? Sources of photos? I’d love to hear from you.

Also, a discussion point: is using a photo like this–now shocking and reaction provoking–acceptable in materials designed to discuss conservation of larger bird species that were hunted?

More free Journals!

In case you missed it–NCSE is now offering all back issues (1980-1996) of the Creation/Evolution Journal online, free, as PDFs!

Also, many of the articles are online in HTML format too.  Example: Gene Kritsky’s article on Fossil Insects!

Overblown DEET news

DEET is the gold standard for insect repellent. I’ve covered it fairly extensively at the Bug Blog–it’s the best thing we have to prevent a wide spectrum of insects from biting and transmitting an even wider spectrum of diseases.

So…Sigh.
Some new DEET research was published this month, and the media…well, has done a crappy job of covering it.  Here’s the latest headline:  Insect Repellent DEET is Neurotoxic.

One thing all the news stories have in common is a very alarmist tone, and reprinting freely from a press release that has very little connection to the reality of the paper.  When you look at the research, they did NOT find that DEET is neurotoxic, and it does NOT cause nerve damage.

Here’s the take home:

If you decide not to use DEET insect repellent on the basis of this bad journalism, you are probably putting yourself in danger. DEET is really the only repellent we have that can deal with ticks, and also protects against a wide range of biting flies.

The results in this paper are preliminary, need to be confirmed, and even IF confirmed, remain irrelevant to the average person who might want to use DEET.

Right, that’s the message.
Now to the details.

Here is what the researchers ACTUALLY found:

Corbel, V., Stankiewicz, M., Pennetier, C., Fournier, D., Stojan, J., Girard, E., Dimitrov, M., Molgo, J., Hougard, J., & Lapied, B. (2009). Evidence for inhibition of cholinesterases in insect and mammalian nervous systems by the insect repellent deet BMC Biology, 7 (1) DOI: 10.1186/1741-7007-7-47

“electrophysiological studies were performed on isolated mouse phrenic hemidiaphragm muscles. We showed that 500 µM deet prolonged by about threefold the decay time constant of synaptic potentials on endplate regions of the muscle fibre…”

Wha? Ah.
Here’s a translation into English (by me):

We put DEET directly onto mouse cells and insect neurons in test tubes. It had a mild inhibitory effect on an important enzyme. The amount of DEET we used on mouse cells was 500 times the level that was active for insect cells. The amounts we used were several orders of magnitude larger than you would ever encounter in life as a human user of DEET repellent.

The best breakdown of this story I’ve seen yet was at Neuroskeptic. In fact, Neuroskeptic saved me a whole lot of time and work by writing an excellent article that I will now swipe here and quote freely:

“the fact that DEET can act as a cholinesterase inhibitor in the lab changes nothing. It’s still safe, at least until evidence comes along that it actually causes harm in people who use it. You can’t show that something is harmful by doing an experiment showing how it could be harmful in theory.”

This paper, when combined with decades of DEET usage data with very, very few adverse affects reported, is really not news at all.  It’s interesting, sure. But it’s not at all relevant to the average American trying not to be bitten while BBQing.

I also agree with this statement from Neuroskeptic:

“To be fair, there is one cause for concern in the paper – in the experiments, DEET interacted with other cholinesterase inhibitors, leading to an amplified effect. That suggests that DEET could become toxic in combination with cholinesterase inhibitor insecticides, but again, the risk is theoretical.”

In some situations, DEET is combined with other compounds that it could, potentially, interact with–but that almost never happens in the US. Those situations are more common in military and tropical uses.  This is a good note to be careful, and to monitor that in the future.  There is also some (laboratory) evidence that sunscreen can increase absorption of DEET, and the two should be combined with caution.

If you are using DEET sensibly, you have nothing to worry about.
What is sensible DEET use? Borrowing from The American Pediatric Society, as well as my own experience:

Do not use DEET under clothing. Put it ON your clothing.

Do not use DEET on the hands of young children; avoid applying to areas around the eyes and mouth.

Do not use DEET over cuts, wounds or irritated skin. Wash treated skin with soap and water after returning indoors; wash treated clothing.

Avoid spraying in enclosed areas; do not use DEET near food.

20% DEET is enough for nearly all US situations. You can buy higher concentrations, but don’t.

Don’t spray DEET on spandex (it’s a long story, but trust me. This won’t end well for you)

Don’t drink, smoke, or otherwise do butt-stupid things with DEET. It’s safe, but only if you play by the rules.