Data Scientist (CFAWN-57) — 15-week

Job Description – Clean Leadership 2022 Program 

We are committed to Employment Equity and our goal is to be a diverse workforce that is representative at all job levels. We welcome applications from Indigenous people, Visible Minority Groups, Persons with Disabilities, LGBTQ2+ people and Women in Occupations or positions where they are under-represented. If you are a member of one of the equity groups, you are encouraged to self-identify on our registration form. 

Summary of the Program 

The Clean Leadership program (formerly Nova Scotia Youth Conservation Corps or Youth Corps) was established in 1989 to provide youth with training and employment opportunities in the environmental field. This program engages community partners across the province to hire youth to carry out work in the summer months that fosters environmental stewardship. The Clean Leadership program provides youth with clean sector work experience; an enhanced appreciation of the environment and their community, with opportunity to give back; skills for life-long learning (including job-readiness and leadership skills); and knowledge for future employment and/or education ventures. Interns will benefit from experiential work experience, a professional development training and leadership conference, networking opportunities and new connections. 

Job Title  

Data Scientist – 15 week internship  

Job Location 

Remote position, occasional in-person work in Halifax

Hours  

Full time – 35 hours per week 

Summary of Position  

The community partner for this Summer Student Intern position through the Clean Leadership program will be Atlantic Water Network (AWN), a project of MakeWay Charitable Society, reporting to the Program Manager.  

The Data Scientist will be responsible for designing and implementing a summer data support strategy and research project tailored to AWN’s network of community-based water monitoring organizations. The Data Scientist will lead data management tutorials and support environmental organizations as they work to make their data open-access through the use of Atlantic DataStream. The Data Scientist will be responsible for surveying community-based watershed reporting methods and will create accessible tools to visualize and analyse water quality data that can be used for community-level watershed reporting across Atlantic Canada. Additionally, the Data Scientist will support AWN’s outreach activities by developing blog and social media posts, attending community outreach events, and meeting with new water monitoring organizations in the region.  

The successful candidate needs to have basic coding skills and experience working with large datasets in programs such as Excel, R, Python, or MATLAB. This position will require creativity and innovation to develop new tools to support our community partners in showcasing the results of their monitoring programs. The successful candidate will have strong communication skills and a passion for community-driven environmental change. 

Community Partner 

Atlantic Water Network (AWN) is a project of the MakeWay Shared Platform and is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. AWN supports over 80 community-based water monitoring initiatives within Atlantic Canada through the following initiatives: 

• Strengthening a regional network with shared water objectives, 
• Providing leadership, resources, education, and training, 
• Promoting local priorities in water policy, and 
• Building trust in community-collected data.

Duties and Responsibilities  

• Lead the development and implementation of AWN’s summer data support strategy which aims to provide guidance to staff and volunteers from external environmental not-for-profits with regards to water quality data management and analysis. Implement the summer data support strategy by: 

• Leading DataStream upload tutorials tailored to staff and volunteers from organizations with varying levels of capacity with regards to data management 

• Supporting AWN’s community partners in transforming data into Atlantic DataStream format using Excel and R tools 

• Co-develop a research project with the support of AWN’s Program Manager to survey and evaluate watershed reporting tools used by community-based monitoring organizations across the region 
• Based on research, develop accessible data analysis and visualization methods that intake raw water quality data and output visuals ready to use in watershed reporting 
• Develop and present a short end-of-summer workshop to share research findings and data science resources with staff and volunteers from AWN’s community partners from across Atlantic Canada 
• Support AWN staff in implementing a Citizen Science Bootcamp by providing a presentation on the summer data support strategy and by directly supporting new citizen scientists with data-related questions 

• Create content for data-related social media posts and blog posts such as our #WaterDataWednesday feature with the support of AWN’s Communications Specialist 
• Attend and assist with a choice of virtual or in-person outreach events (at a minimum, monthly) throughout the summer that are run by community environmental organizations, such as water quality monitoring runs, BioBlitzes, and workshops

Requirements/Qualifications 

• Must be a Canadian citizen, Permanent Resident, person who has been granted Refugee Status, or legally entitled to work in Canada;  
• Must be between the ages of 15 and 30 years old (inclusive) at the start of internship; 
• From and/or will be residing in Nova Scotia for the duration of the internship; 
• Must be a full-time student* and intending to return to school in Fall 2022; 
• *Note: Indigenous, Black and/or African Nova Scotian youth between 18-30 years of age do not need to be current students to be eligible. 
• Must not be an immediate family member of community partner; 
• Have an aptitude for safe work practices and the ability to multi-task in a busy work environment; 
• Be able to work productively as part of a team while responding to feedback; 
• Demonstrated passion and interest in future employment in the environmental or clean sector is considered an asset; 
• Coursework in mathematics, computer science, engineering, environmental science, ecology, or geography;  
• Adept in both teamwork and working independently;   
• Experience working with and transforming large datasets;  
• Experience coding in languages such as R, MATLAB, or Python; 
• Strong communication and outreach skills with experience communicating difficult scientific concepts to lay audiences;  
• Experience with environmental monitoring will be consisted an asset

Wage  

$18 / hour 

Working Conditions  

• Requires a home office setup and laptop (access to coding software and other tools will be provided)   
• Willingness to travel within the province and to other Maritime provinces, should travel be permitted  

Physical Requirements  

•   N/A