Environment and Sustainability, Minor

The Environment & Sustainability Program

The Environment & Sustainability Program (ENSP) seeks to provide students with the ability to recognize the complex environmental problems threatening our planet and create potential paths towards a more sustainable future. Taking courses in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, students majoring and minoring in ENSP develop an interdisciplinary toolkit to identify, analyze, and ameliorate the most pressing environmental issues of our time.

Majors have the option to pursue one of three tracks: Environmental Humanities (B.A.), Environmental Science (B.S.), or Environmental Policy (B.A.). Each track provides students with the opportunity to obtain more depth in their area of interest. ENSP graduates regularly find an array of employment opportunities in business, government, and non-profit organizations. In addition, many ENSP graduates go on to pursue advanced degrees in environmental science, environmental studies, business, law, and other disciplines.

For further information, updates, and additional descriptive visit https://www.wm.edu/environment.

Required Credits: 19

Core Requirements4
Introduction to Environment and Sustainability
Seminar Topics in Environmental Science and Policy
12 credits with courses from at least two of the three categories (environmental humanities, environmental social science, environmental natural science)12
Foundation in Environmental Humanities
Advanced Topics in American Studies (Environmental Thinking)
Introduction to Native Studies
Environmental Anthropology
Art and Ecology
Seminar Topics in Art History (Art & Environmental Justice)
Environmental Justice
Conservation Ethics
Indigenous Knowledges & Conservation
Studies in Contemporary Literature (Literature of the Anthropocene)
Topics in British Literature Before 1700 (Early Modern Ecologies)
Topics in Environmental Arts, Literature, & Film
Topics in Environmental History
Emergent Ecologies
Seminar in Film and Media Studies (Eco Cinema)
Environmental Cultures
American West, 1890-
Ecocritical Italy: Narrating the Anthropocene
Topics in Japanese Literature and Culture (Cultures of Catastrophe)
Issues in Environmental Ethics
Or other approved course
Foundation in Environmental Social Sciences
The Anthropocene
Environ Archaeology
Archaeology of North America
Native Cultures of South America
People, Cultures, and the Environment of Polynesia
Consumer Behavior
Sustainability Inspired Innovation and Design
CONS 440 Sustainable Livelihoods
Political Ecology of Conservation
Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
Economics of Climate Change
Introduction to Environmental Policy
Topics in Environmental Social Sciences
Global Environmental Politics
Topics in Government (Political Economy of Extreme Weather)
Environmental Sociology
Political Ecology of Health & Disease
Or other approved course
Foundation in Environmental Natural Science
Introduction to Organisms, Ecology, Evolution
Ecology
Evolution of Organisms
Conservation Biology
Animal Behavior
Intro to Ornithology
Population and Community Ecology
Aquatic Ecology
Wetland Ecosystems
Entomology
Marine Invertebrate Biology
Advanced Seminar in Biology (Marine Ecology)
The Dynamic Earth: Physical Geology
Earth's Environmental Systems: Physical Geography
Age of Dinosaurs
Planetary Geology
Global Climate Change
Geologic Evolution of VA
Environmental Geology
Regional Field Geology
Field Methods in the Earth Sciences
Watershed Dynamics
Hydrology
Environmental Geochemistry
Earth Surface Processes
Paleoclimatology & Paleoceanography
Paleontology
Or other approved course
Capstone Experience3
Special Topics in Environmental Science and Policy
Independent Research
Honors
Internship
Total Hours19