Environmental Studies Minor
Coordinator: Rob Alexander
Email: alexanrw@jmu.edu
Phone: (540) 568-3771
Environmental Studies Minor Website
The environmental studies minor provides a cross disciplinary education engaging socio-cultural, scientific and technical issues raised by the oft-conflicting needs and desires of globally interacting societies. Designed to complement any major, the goals of the environmental studies minor include:
- To help undergraduates develop an awareness of the cultural, political and scientific aspects of the world's environmental problems.
- To better prepare students for further study at the graduate or professional school level and careers in the expanding field of environmental professions.
Minor Requirements
Overview of Requirements
The requirement for a minor in environmental studies is a minimum of 21 credit hours taken from the three categories:
- Introduction to Environment and Environmental Science Literacy: Fundamental to exploring the problems which emerge through the human/nature interaction is an understanding of core scientific concepts and processes that underlie natural systems. Therefore, minors will take an environmental science course that provides a broad survey of core concepts as well as an environmental science course that provides a targeted focus on an environmental science topic.
- The Socio-Cultural Context of Environmental Studies: The core of the Environmental Studies minor is exploring the human/nature relationship and the challenges emerging from it through multiple disciplinary lenses, resulting in a truly interdisciplinary environmental studies experience.
- The Senior Seminar capstone course: The culminating experience for the environmental studies minor is the combined capstone, co-taught by two faculty members from different fields and joined by the environmental science and environmental management minors. With a small size, opportunities for experiential field trips and engagement with current environmental challenges, ENVT 400 creates an all hands on deck opportunity to demonstrate interdisciplinary competency in environmental studies and to make a difference with real environmental, sustainability, climate justice and resiliency problems.
No more than two courses from a single subject (e.g., GEOG, GEOL, ANTH, ENG) may count toward completion of the minor. Students wishing to complete more than one of the environment minors (environmental management, environmental science and environmental studies) may receive dual credit for the capstone course (ENVT 400), but may not receive dual credit for any other courses that might be shared by the minors.
Courses
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Environment | ||
| All students seeking the minor must have one broad survey course on the human/nature relationship. | ||
| Choose one of the following: | 3-4 | |
| Contemporary Biology [C3NS] | ||
| Quantitative Ecology and Evolution | ||
| Environmental Systems Theory | ||
| Physical Geography (2, 2) | ||
| Environment: Earth [C3NS] | ||
| Physical Geology [C3NS] | ||
| Earth Systems and Climate Change [C3NS] | ||
| Applied Physical Geology [C3NS] | ||
| Environmental and Energy Sustainability [C3PP] | ||
| Environmental Issues in Science and Technology (2,3) [C3PP] | ||
| Subtotal | 3-4 | |
| Environmental Science Literacy | ||
| The Environmental Literacy requirement ensures that Minors will have at least one course providing depth and focus on at least one environmental science topic. | ||
| Choose one of the following: | 3-4 | |
| Biological Applications of Geographic Information Systems | ||
| Freshwater Ecology | ||
| Climatology | ||
| Introduction to Oceanography [C3NS] | ||
| Evolution of Earth (3, 2) | ||
| Environmental Impact | ||
| Meteorology | ||
| Environmental Soil Science (2, 2) | ||
| Fundamentals of Environmental Science and Technology I | ||
| Energy and the Environment [C3PP] | ||
| Sustainability: An Ecological Perspective | ||
| Subtotal | 3-4 | |
| The Socio-Cultural Context of Environmental Studies | ||
| Choose four courses (a minimum of 12 credit hours) from the following: 1 | 12 | |
| Environmental Economics | ||
| Economics of Natural Resources | ||
| Literature and Ideas [C2L] (Lit, Nature, Env section only) | ||
| Literature and the Environment | ||
| The Environmental Imagination | ||
| Environmental Impact | ||
or GEOG 310 | Environmental Issues | |
| Agricultural Systems | ||
| Environmental Ethics | ||
| Weather, Climate and Society | ||
| Water Resources of the World | ||
| U.S. Environmental History | ||
| Introduction to Systems Thinking for Complex Problems | ||
| Environmental Policy and Regulation | ||
| Natural Resource Management | ||
| Political Ecology | ||
| Environmental Regulatory Policy and Politics | ||
| Governance for Environmental Sustainability | ||
| Third Wave Ecofeminism | ||
| Environmental Communication and Advocacy | ||
| Sociology of the Environment | ||
| Sociology of Disasters | ||
| Rhetoric of Environmental Science and Technology | ||
Approved special topics courses | ||
Approved internship programs | ||
Approved study abroad courses | ||
| Subtotal | 12 | |
| Senior Seminar Capstone Course | ||
| ENVT 400 | Capstone Seminar in Environmental Problem Solving | 3 |
| Subtotal | 3 | |
| Total Credits | 21-23 | |
- 1
Only two courses with the same course subject may be taken.