The Environmental Science and Technology major prepares students for careers and graduate study on environmental problems and solutions that benefit humans and ecosystems. Students in ENST can choose one of four concentrations.
Major Concentrations
The ENST concentration in Ecological Technology Design prepares students for integrating natural systems with the built environment to solve environmental problems while achieving economic, ecological and social sustainability. The science and applications of using natural systems, processes and organisms to address environmental issues has evolved during the last few decades with strong employment opportunities for graduates that are cross-educated in ecology and technology.
The ENST concentration in Ecosystem Health gives students the concepts and skills to work in this broad and increasingly important field with wide ranging applications in the environmental science and public health fields. The field encompasses environmental factors and ecosystem functions that affect human health and the effects of human activities on the ecosystem products and services we depend on.
The concentration in Soil and Watershed Science provides students with one of the top soil science programs in the nation. The concentration enables students to understand the complex ways in which aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems are influenced by soil properties and processes and land management decisions. The soil performs such critical ecological functions as supplying and purifying water, recycling wastes, nurturing plants, providing habitats, and modifying the atmosphere by emitting or sequestering gases and particulates.
The ENST concentration in Natural Resources Management is designed to teach students concepts of the environmentally sound use and management of natural resources. Ecosystems and human societies are linked in complex cycles and relationships between vegetation and wildlife, forests and cities, conservation and development. By learning to participate effectively within these cycles, we will help sustain a harmonious relationship between the environment and human activities.
Minor in Soil Science
The Soil Science minor will provide students with a sophisticated understanding of soil resources, its development, characteristics, and principles for its use and management. Building on a basic introduction to the broad field of soil science, the program is completed by adding four or five upper division soils courses balanced between underlying principles and field applications.
ENSP Specializations sponsored through Environmental Science and Technology
Soil, Water and Land Resources
Soil forms an essential part of the environment, affecting or controlling most living things. Soil science draws from geology, geography and a variety of other natural and life sciences, focuses land use management at the watershed scale and provides an integrated knowledge of soil and water dynamics to control problems like non-point source pollution, wetland delineation, and land classification. Learn more through ENSP Concentrations page.
Wildlife Ecology and Management
Wildlife is a term for the diversity of natural populations of plants and animals that exist in the biosphere. Although wildlife usually refers to vertebrate animals and higher plants, in a more general sense the term covers all natural biodiversity. Today, the study of wildlife ecology is a rigorous science that spans biological scales from the genome to the biosphere. Learn more through ENSP Concentrations page.
