The proposed standards also call for earth science to be equal in status to chemistry, biology, and physics at the high school level. How these proposed standards are implemented, and how school administrators fill vacancies in their science departments, will ultimately determine if these new standards will drive an increase in demand for teachers with earth science degrees. Teaching is the emphasis at community colleges and four-year schools, with the ability to teach more than one subdiscipline a must. The more prestigious four-year schools also expect faculty to maintain a research program as a vehicle for engaging students in the process of scientific research and discovery. Research universities typically have an equal division of effort between research and teaching, with the teaching including undergraduate through graduate education.
Most museums carry a small professional staff and utilize large numbers of unpaid volunteers.
There has been an upswing of interest in the field related in part to the popularity of dinosaurs, evolution, and catastrophic extinctions, as well as a move in natural history museums to upgrade their displays to a more dynamic, interactive, and educational format. A related field that has recently developed is that of the independent fossil hunters who trades their finds on the open market. Most government positions have historically been with the Federal government, although all states have some type of geological survey. Major employers of geoscientists are the USGS, NOAA, NASA, DOE, EPA, BLM, Minerals Management Service, Forest Service, and Soil Conservation Service. Career tracks are primarily technical with a smaller percentage of managerial opportunities.