Volunteer Opportunities
The following are some of our current volunteer opportunities in museum exhibits, administrative support, environmental programs, library support, and scientific research assistance.
We also have opportunities for children to participate through Family Volunteering.
If it's not listed here, we'll explore other possibilities to match your interests and talents.
Use the online sign-up form to inquire about these and other volunteer possibilities.
Museum Exhibits
If you enjoy interacting with the public, especially children, volunteering in one of our exhibits may be the perfect fit. Opportunities range from informal guides to animal caretaker.
We usually to take on new volunteers for museum exhibits and the Live Animal Center in the fall and again in the spring (but sometimes in between!). To make sure you don't miss application deadlines, please contact us by March or early April for a summer start or by August or early September for a Fall start.
Butterflies!
Volunteers serve as informal guides in this enchanting tropical garden of flowering plants where a hundred or more live butterflies from various parts of the world fly freely about. Volunteers are key in helping visitors enjoy and learn about the variety of very colorful butterflies in this garden within our museum.
The Academy at 200: The Nature of Discovery
Opens March 21, 2012
The Academy of Natural Sciences is celebrating its 200th year with a special exhibit which will include a stunning array of materials from the museum and research collections. Part of the exhibit will feature rooms that present Academy scientists historic and contemporary discoveries. Volunteers will guide visitors as they discover the Academy's history and current scientific research and gain insight into the Academys scientific exploration. Volunteers will work with diverse touchable objects in informal and formal programs to help visitors understand the natural world and our place in it.
Dinosaur Hall
Volunteers share their enthusiasm and knowledge with visitors in Dinosaur Hall, and help children turn into junior paleontologists in "The Big Dig." Volunteers also train to prepare fossils in our Paleo Prep lab.
Internships are also available for college students interested in Museum Education and Paleontology.
Family Volunteering
The minimum age for a volunteer workin alone is 14, but this new program offers the opportunity for children as young as eight to pair up with an adult (parent, grandparent or adult sibling) and help as a team.
This is a new program for the Academy but it's proved popular at other museums because:
- Kids get experience working with public in a safe and supervised way;
- Kids develop new skills such as scheduling time, recording their hours, and working with others in a team;
- It's a great way to have fun together.
We currently have opportunities for Family Volunteers in:
- Dinosaur Hall (weekdays)
- The Big Dig (weekdays)
Live Animal Center
The center maintains a collection of more than 100 animals as a vital part of the Academy's education program. These animals are mainly non-releasable wildlife or exotic pets, and include raptors, parrots, skunks, rabbits, turtles, snakes, lizards, and more. Volunteers work behind the scenes to help care for the animals. There is a lot of cleaning involved but you'll learn about some very interesting residents of the Academy.
Internships for college students pursuing a career with animals are also available.
Outside In
This children's nature museum, was created in 1979 to provide hands-on activities for museum visitors. The exhibit combines live animals, artifacts, and activities that invite exploration and the involvement of the senses. As a volunteer you are trained to facilitate learning experiences and encourage exploration by the museum's youngest visitors.
Internships are also available for college students interested in Museum Education.
Science Live Volunteers
Volunteers will serve as informal educators at Science Live, an interactive counter located in a high traffic area just outside of the Auditorium on the first floor of the museum. The main goal of Science Live is to introduce the public to science at the Academy in a fun and accessible way. Volunteers will do informal presentations using educational props and actual Academy specimens (some dating back as far as the early 1800s), and they will direct fun-filled activities to engage museum visitors. During the 2012 celebration, Science Live will focus on interpreting a different Academy collection and research area each month.
Summer Explorers Camp Assistants
A limited number of volunteers are needed to assist with our Summer Explorers Camp program. This camp provides an educational summer experience for campers at the Academy from during week long programs during July and August. Children aged 6 to 12 will participate in hands-on, themed programs that reflect the research of the Academy’s own scientists. Campers might conduct experiments with scientists, sketch with Academy artists, explore the museum’s research labs and animals and plant collections, or meet a variety of interesting live animals, and they take science on the road with weekly trips. Themes explored include water, animals, fossils, nature, and insects. Volunteers engage campers in informal, hands-on activities (arts and crafts, indoor and outdoor games, and free play) both in the museum and on weekly field trips throughout the Delaware Valley. Minimum age: 14.
Internships are also available for college students interested in Museum Education.
Visitor Services
Volunteers are needed to assist as greeters at the 19th Street entrance to the Academy of Natural Sciences museum. While many visitors enter the museum using the front door to the museum this side door can be just as busy and upon stepping inside, visitors often need assistance in knowing what to do next. This entrance is used by staff and volunteers, by school and camp groups, by Academy Members, by individuals and families signed up for special activities (adult programs, birthday parties, scout badge programs, etc.). On weekends it is also used by regular museum visitors. It is the entrance for people with disabilities And it is an entrance used by a number of others for all kinds of reasons!
A Volunteer at this entrance provides a friendly presence to help visitors get their museum experience off to the best possible start - whether that be to direct them to the admissions desk, the Security Guard, or directly to another check-in area. For school and camp groups, volunteers would assist Visitors Services staff in greeting school buses, helping groups enter the building, explaining rules to children, and giving guidance to teachers and chaperones, or camp leaders. Minimum Age for volunteers is 18.
Internships can be explored for college students and young professionals in the tourism and hospitality fields.
Office Help
Volunteers fill a critical need by supporting Academy office staff (Membership and Development, Marketing/Public Relations, Communications, the Live Animal Center, and the Volunteer Office itself) with filing, photocopying, mailings, or more complex office tasks. Volunteers are also needed to work on an on-call basis for large mailings.
Internships for college students can be considered in these offices.
Library Support
The Ewell Sale Stewart Library houses a world-class collection focused primarily on natural history, biology, systematics, and environmental science. Its holdings include some 200,000 volumes ranging from works published in the 1500s to current serials and scientific publications from all over the world. The library’s collections are used primarily by research staff at the Academy, but other users include Academy members, visiting scientists, historians, artists, graduate students, and people with an advanced interest in the natural world. Depending upon skills and interests, there are a variety of ongoing operations and special projects where volunteers can offer needed support. For those with strong computer skills we can also use volunteers to help with digital imaging of library resources to make them available in databases, web pages, and the online catalog of the library. The library can also consider college students interested in (unpaid) internships.
Scientific Research Assistance
Volunteers have an exceptional opportunity to assist scientists in caring for the vast research collections of the Academy. The departments where volunteers have been active include: Botany, Entomology, Ichthyology, Malacology, Ornithology, and Paleontology. These collections include 17 million specimens from around the world, including thousands of types, the specimens used as standards to describe the entire species. Depending upon your skills and interests, you can assist in a variety of tasks critical to the effective use of the collections—everything from cleaning and labeling, to cataloging, sorting, and inventory. Volunteers can also work in VIREO, helping to sort, file, and duplicate a unique collection containing thousands of photographs of birds.
Ornithology Donor Descendant Research Assistant
The Ornithology Department is searching for a new volunteer to assist with our ongoing Donor Descendant research program. This project identifies individuals throughout the history of the Academy who have contributed to Ornithologys world class collection. And the project seeks to identify descendants of donors to offer them a personal connection to the collection and the work of the Academy today. A volunteer with computer skills and some basic knowledge of databases is needed to assist in updating our donor descendent database, tracking contacts with donors, and preparing text and images for web publishing about donor-descendant families. This volunteer role offers a unique opportunity to an individual with an interest in history (and birds) to contribute professional experience and computer skills to this important project
Patrick Center for Environmental Research
Research scientists in the Patrick Center for Environmental Research examine aquatic ecosystems and their plant and animal populations, as well as water pollution, toxicology, and the human and chemical impact on water systems. Openings in this area are very limited but volunteers with a strong grounding in biology and an interest in environmental conservation are welcome to contact us to explore possibilities.