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 & Sustainability  
2. ENVS 111 Introduction to Earth Science  
3. ENVS 112 Ecology and the Human Future  
4. ENVS 198  and ENVS 498 Conversations Towards 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 General Chemistry I  

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 291 Geospatial Analysis with Desktop GIS  and GEOG 292 Geospatial Analysis with Web 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 114 Materials Foundation  (Bogdanov) 
2. ENVS 201 1 The Science Behind the Environmental Classics  
3. HIST 300 5 Introduction to Environmental History  
4. HIST 350 C Topics: Black Death  
5. PHIL 250 Environmental Ethics  

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

1. BIOL 255 Tropical Biology  (+lab)
2. BIOL 252 Biodiversity of Flowering Plants  (+lab)
3. BIOL 311 Invertebrate Zoology  (+lab)
4. BIOL 313 Entomology  (+lab)
5. BIOL 337 Adaptive Biology of Plants  (+lab)
6. BIOL 341 Ornithology  (+lab)
7. BIOL 344 Plant Communities and Ecosystems  (+lab)
8. BIOL 345 Marine Biology  (+lab)
9. BIOL 347 Population and Community Ecology  (+lab)
10. BIOL 349 Island Biology  (+lab)
11. BIOL 353 Conservation Biology  
12. BIOL 355 Plant Responses to Global Change  (+lab, travel)
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 Topics in Environment & Sustainability  
19. GEOG 245 Weather & Climate  
20. GEOG 353 Cartography and GIS  or GEOG 355 Geographic Information Systems  
21. GEOG 369 Remote Sensing of the Environment  
22. MATH 200 2 Mathematical Models of Climate  
23. MATH 280 Differential Equations  
24. PG 356 Public Administration  or PG 355 American Public Policy  
25. PHIL 343 Philosophy of Science  
26. PSYC 262 Health Psychology  
27. SOAN 367 Human Ecology