Volunteer & Internship Opportunities

 

Volunteer

Stream Stewards

Stream Stewards educate County residents on the importance of their habits to the health of local rivers and streams.

County Stream Stewards are active year round and can participate in activities such as plogging, orgainizing community cleanups, and storm drain marking.  Learn more.

DEP Cleans Up Litter

Recycling Volunteers

Help achieve the goal of a 70% recycling rate by 2020!  

Become a recycling volunteer and participate in our Speakers Bureau, attend fairs and outreach events, support compost workshops or provide office assistance. Anyone in the County can become a recycling volunteer!  Learn more.

Recycling Volunteers

 

Intern with DEP

The Department of Environmental Protection has a limited number of unpaid internships available for students to help further enhance their skills and career goals. Internship assignments will be developed in an effort to combine the applicant's interests and goals with the Department needs.

Our intent is to provide interns with real-world experience and training while at the same time obtaining much needed help on our most pressing challenges.

The vast majority of our internships are suitable for undergraduate or Master’s students, but qualified high school students may be considered. Internships can be limited to a semester or year-round, except for the biological monitoring internships which are only in summer. View our Do's and Don'ts of applying for an internship.

 

Department Areas of Focus:

  • Water, Watershed Restoration and RainScapes

  • ​Biological Monitoring Internships (See more info below)

  • Outreach, Education and Communications

  • Energy

  • Trees and Air Quality

  • Sustainability and Climate Change

  • Compliance and Community Concerns


Photo of an intern and DEP employee at an outreach event.

 

 

Summer Biological Monitoring Internships

Each summer, the Watershed Management Division offers specialized volunteer internships to work with stream monitoring crews to collect biological, physiochemical and habitat data. The internships are unpaid.  Download an application for the summer biological monitoring internship.

The deadline to apply for the Summer Biological Monitoring volunteer internship is March 17, 2023.

Image of a monitoring intern holding a fish.

Duties may include:

  • Fish sampling

  • Habitat assessments

  • Physical chemistry sampling

  • Amphibian & reptile surveys

  • Temperature meter deployment

  • Benthic macroinvertebrate sub-sampling

  • Data entry and database querying

  • Public outreach projects

 

Do's and Don'ts of Applying for a DEP Internship

Do:

  • Be clear on your cover letter what your interests and desired area of focus would be. This helps us match you with the appropriate staff person.

  • Submit your resume or cover letter as a Microsoft Word file or PDF by email to askdep@montgomerycountymd.gov, if possible. If you need assistance submitting an application or resume, please call DEP at 240-777-7730.

  • For those applying for a summer biological monitoring internship, make sure to attach an application and apply by the deadline.

Don't:

  • Don't email your resume to an individual staff person. Only email to askdep@montgomerycountymd.gov.

  • Don't email or call to "see the status" or "check on the progress". You will hear from DEP if there was interest in your application. We receive many resumes, so we might not be able to contact everyone. 

  • Don't apply for the summer biological monitoring internship if you're going to be gone for most of the summer or can't commit to the internship.