Learning Objectives

• Students will be able to explain how a wide range of interdisciplinary factors (social sciences, natural sciences and humanities) contribute to environmental issues. They will also be able to explain how environmental factors connect to social and political concerns, including cultural conflicts, the built environment, ethical issues, human health, economic issues, poverty, and war.

• Students will develop skills in detecting and conceptualizing complex connections in real-world environmental issues based on their experiences with engaged projects. For example, the role of natural and social science perspectives, as well as humanities (such as ethics), methodologies, politics, and interpersonal relations. This implies a capacity to engage in real-world problem solving.

• Students will be able to connect global environmental concerns to local places and communities and address environmental problems in a global context and from diverse cultural and geographic perspectives.

Major Requirements

Core Requirements (3.5 units) for Environmental Studies major:

1. ENVS 110  Introduction to Environment and Sustainability
2. ENVS 111  Physical Geography 
3. ENVS 112  Ecology and the Human Future
4. ENVS 198  and ENVS 498  Conversations Toward a Sustainable Future (.25 units)

Independent Project (1 unit): A significant project developed in consultation with the Director of Environmental Studies consisting of at least one unit of independent study (ENVS 490 or equivalent) or apprenticeship (ENVS 495 or equivalent). Project may be the outgrowth of travel learning courses, summer science research, theory into practice grant projects, internships, etc. Project will be refined and presented as part of ENVS 198/498 taken during the senior year.

One (1) natural science unit from:

1. BIOL 122   Organisms and their Environment
2. BIOL 103   Biology of Cultivated Plants
3. BIOL 125   Introduction to Microbiology
4. CHEM 230   Environmental Chemistry or CHEM 110   Introduction to Chemistry 
5. GEOG 245  Weather and Climate

One (1) quantitative unit from:

1. MATH 105 Basic Probability and Statistics  
2. MATH 200 3 Biostatistics  
3. MATH 230 Applied Statistics  
4. PSYC 210 Quantitative Methods  

Two (2) social sciences units from:

1. ECON 366 Environmental and Natural Resource Economics  
2. ENVS 499 Topics in Environment & Sustainability  
3. GEOG 191 and 192 Geospatial Analysis with Desktop (191) and Web (192) GIS [module courses, each worth 0.5 credits]
4. GEOG 235 Energy Resources  
5. GEOG 347 Human Impacts on the Environment  
6. GEOG 360 Environmental Geography  
7. HIST 300 5 Introduction to Environmental History   
8. NUTR 300 12 Global Food Systems  
9. PG 362 International Organizations  
10. PG 280 Environmental Politics and Policy  
11. PHIL 250 Environmental Ethics  
12. SOAN 367 Human Ecology  

Two (2) cultural / humanities / arts units from:

1. ART 113 A Three Dimensional Design   (Bogdanov) 
2. HIST 300 5 : Introduction to Environmental History
3. HIST 350 C Topics: Black Death  
4. PHIL 250 : Environmental Ethics

Six (6) units (no more than three from the same discipline):

1. BIOL 255  (+lab): Tropical Biology
2. BIOL 252  (+lab): Biodiversity of Flowering Plants
3. BIOL 311  (+lab): Invertebrate Zoology
4. BIOL 313  (+lab) Entomology
5. BIOL 337  (+lab): Adaptive Biology of Plants
6. BIOL 341  (+lab) Ornithology
7. BIOL 344  (+lab): Plant Communities and Ecosystems
8. BIOL 345  (+lab) Marine Biology
9. BIOL 347  (+lab) Population and Community Ecology
10. BIOL 349  (+lab) Island Biology
11. BIOL 353  Conservation Biology
12. BIOL 355  (+lab, travel): Plant Responses to Global Change
13. ECON 353  Economic Development
14. ECON 370  Economic Systems
15. ENVS 399  Sustainability Practicum
16. ENVS 490  Independent Study
17. ENVS 491  Directed Readings
18. ENVS 499  Special Topics in Environment and Sustainability
19. GEOG 353  Cartography or GEOG 355: Geographic Information Systems
20. GEOG 369  Remote Sensing of the Environment
21. MATH 200 2  Mathematical Modeling of Climate Change
22. MATH 280  Differential Equations
23. PG 356  Public Administration or PG 355  American Public Policy
24. PHIL 343  Philosophy and Science
25. PSYC 262  Health Psychology
26. SOAN 367  Human Ecology