I'm looking for new work at the moment and there's two or three places where they've got two jobs in the same department doing slightly different things on the same project at slightly different levels.

They're in education projects I quite like the sound of and obviously apply for both jobs mean if I miss out on the higher level/most tempting job there's still a fallback.

My questions are

a) Will this look desperate/needy/like I'd apply for everything or like I really, really want to work on the project in question?

b) Given that I'm pretty sure it'll be the same people reviewing these applications, should I acknowledge the fact I'm applying for two different things at once and explain myself?