Environmental Studies Major

Contact:
Angela Moore, Assistant Professor of Geology

Kyle Dell, Assistant Professor of Political Science

Environmental studies provides an interdisciplinary program that emphasizes the relationship between humans and the environment. It allows students to study and address fundamental issues of our times--the quality of the Earth's environment and the sustainable use of its natural resources.

The program focuses on justice, global awareness, and service to the larger community while respecting the concept of nature as sacred and Guilford's Quaker heritage. The Guilford environmental studies program is an overlap of many disciplines, including the humanities, social sciences, business and policy studies, arts, and natural sciences.

Degrees Offered

The Bachelor of Arts is offered in environmental studies.

Major Requirements

Environmental studies is required to be a double major, meaning that students must have a disciplinary academic major in addition to environmental studies. To satisfy the environmental studies major, students must take at least eight courses (32 credit hours) according to the following requirements:

Introduction -- All students must take ENVS 101: Environmental Science, Policy, and Thought-Introduction to Environmental Studies.

Environmental Studies Courses -- Students must take six courses in environmental studies. These courses are split into four courses that explore an area other than the student's disciplinary major and two that complement the disciplinary major. For students whose disciplinary major is not in the natural sciences (i.e., biology, geology, chemistry, and physics), four courses must be in environmental science. Students whose major is in the natural sciences must take four environmental policy and thought courses. These non-science courses must be from at least two different disciplines.

  • Depth Requirement -- Of the 4-2 split described above, half of the courses (two of the four and one of the two) must be 300-level or above.
  • Interdisciplinary Requirement -- Students may not count courses taken in the same department as their disciplinary major for environmental studies credit.

Capstone -- Students must take an approved IDS to serve as a capstone experience in the major. To ensure interdisciplinary participation, we will solicit these IDS courses from all divisions of the college.

Environmental Studies Courses

The following courses are currently approved as environmental studies courses. Other courses will be added as they are developed and taught, and non-approved courses may be petitioned to count for environmental studies in some cases.

Environmental Science Courses

  • BIOL 112: Integrative Biology - Organisms, Ecology and Evolution
  • BIOL 115: General Botany
  • BIOL 212: Environmental Science
  • BIOL 224: Field Botany
  • BIOL 235: Vertebrate Field Zoology
  • BIOL/GEOL 242: Natural Science Seminar
  • BIOL 333: Ichthyology
  • BIOL 334: Animal Behavior
  • BIOL 336: Ornithology
  • BIOL 438: General Ecology
  • CHEM 105: Chemistry of Recycling
  • CHEM 111: Chemical Principles I
  • ENVS 325: Environmental Planning
  • ENVS 330/GEOL 230: Environmental Pollution
  • GEOL 121: Geology and the Environment
  • GEOL 141: Oceanography
  • GEOL 223: Hydrology
  • GEOL 250: Climate and History
  • GEOL 340: Images of the Earth
  • GEOL 416: Sedimentology & Stratigraphy  
  • MATH 112: Elementary Statistics

Environmental Policy and Thought

  • ART 254: Sculpture and the Environment
  • ECON 222: Microeconomics
  • ECON 301: Research Methods
  • ECON 344: Environmental and Resource Economics
  • ENG 225: American Literature Survey I
  • PHIL 242: Environmental Ethics
  • PSCI 318: Environmentalism in Early America
  • PSCI 319: Modern Environmental Problems 
  • PSY 344: Environmental Psychology
  • SOAN 225: Culture and the Environment
  • SOAN 246: Mediation and Conflict Intervention

Internships and independent study can be used to satisfy any of the Environmental Studies courses with approval from the coordinators.

For the capstone course, students can choose from the following:

  • IDS 404: Antarctica
  • IDS 418: Science, Sex, and Nature
  • IDS 437: Barrier Islands
  • IDS 441: Environmental Psychology
  • IDS 458: Environmental and Resource Economics
  • IDS 461: Nothin' But Disasters