Goals and Requirements for Major and Minor

Goals for the Major

In successfully completing a major in Environmental Studies, students will be able to:

• Articulate and apply to environmental issues the basic tenets of ecology
• Articulate and evaluate the scientific evidence in favor of such global environmental challenges as the build-up greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, depletion of ozone in the stratosphere, and loss of species and habitat diversity
• Know how to research and evaluate the feasibility of technical solutions to contamination of the air, water, soil, and food supply
• Describe concrete instances of how cultural constraints affect human ability to apply technical solutions to known environmental hazards
• Research and evaluate how to prevent species and habitat loss while understanding how cultural constraints affect the ability to solve these problems
• Illustrate and critically analyze notable examples where cooperation on environmental issues, nationally as well as internationally, has met with both success and failure
• Judge the relative degree to which specific environmental practices in industry, agriculture, civic life, and leisure pursuits may be made sustainable
• Develop a foundation for making informed decisions about environmental issues.

Requirements for Major or Minor