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Department of Natural Sciences

Environmental Studies

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Mission

Environmental Studies is a new interdisciplinary degree program designed to teach students, in the broadest sense, how humans influence the quality of their environment.  A primary focus of this field of study is how to reduce the effects of human activities on our planet through development of sustainable lifestyles and resource stewardship practices. The required coursework teaches students concepts and skills from fields as diverse as ecology, environmental law, conservation biology, descriptive writing, environmental history, environmental literature, environmental sociology, chemistry, climate science and economics.  This degree program is designed to provide an excellent foundation for post-graduate work, as well as for governmental and non-governmental jobs that have  a resource conservation or sustainability focus.   Students interested in majoring or minoring in Environmental Studies should contact any of our Environmental Studies faculty for more information.

Requirements for a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies

The major in Environmental Studies consists of 42 credit hours from the following courses. These must be completed along with core curriculum courses that all HT students complete.

The following courses (24 hours) are required:

ENGL 3383 Environmental Literature 3 hours*
HIST 3381 Environmental History 3 hours*
SOCI 2345 Environmental Sociology 3 hours
BIOL 2406 Environmental Biology 4 hours
CHEM 1405 or CHEM       1411 Chemistry for Citizens or General Chemistry I 4 hours
ENVI 4302 or ENVI  4301 Environmental Studies Internship or Environmental Studies Research 3 hours*
MATH 1314 or PSCI/PSYC/SOCI 2313 Introductory Statistics or Social Science Statistics I 3 hours
ENVI  4101 Environmental Issues Seminar 1 hour*

Plus six (6) hours from the following courses:

BIOL 3302 Terrestrial Field Biology     3 hours*
BIOL 3303 Aquatic Field Biology     3 hours*
BIOL 3304 Conservation Biology     3 hours*

Six (6) hours from the following courses:

ENGL 3393 Technical Writing 3 hours*
ENGL 3327 Topics in Creative Writing 3 hours*
COMM 3313 News Reporting and Writing 3 hours*

And six (6) hours from the following courses:

ECON 2301 Principles of Microeconomics 3 hours
ECON 2302 Principles of Macroeconomics 3 hours
PSYC/SOCI  2320 Conflict Resolution 3 hours
PSCI 3316 Public Administration, 3 hours*

 

Environmental Studies Minor

The minor in Environmental Studies consists of 20 credit hours from the following courses:

The following core courses are required (17 Credit Hours):

ENGL 3383 Environmental Literature, 3 hours*
HIST 3381 Environmental History 3 hours*
SOCI 2345 Environmental Sociology 3 hours
BIOL 1406 Environmental Biology 4 hours
MATH 1314, PSCI/PSYC/SOCI 2313 Introductory Statistics or Social Science Statistics I 3 hours
ENVI 1405 Environmental Issues Seminar 1 hour

And three (3) hours from the following courses:

BIOL 3302 Terrestrial Field Biology 3 hours*
BIOL 3303 Aquatic Field Biology 3 hours*
BIOL 3304 Conservation Biology 3 hours*

*Upper Division Courses.  Under the Major in Environmental Studies, numbers 1-3 include 18 hours of upper division credit which is below the minimum of 21 required for a major. In order to meet the 21 credit hour requirement, students must take one additional upper division course from the above list.  BIOL 2406 Environmental Biology, and eventually CHEM 1405 Chemistry are the only Core Curriculum courses in this list. Only 8 credit hours can count both toward the core curriculum requirements and the major requirements.