Case Study
Environmental Science
The applied environmental degree, built around estuaries, water quality and the coast. It is the most interdisciplinary program we run.
Environmental Science at Northmoor is built around the coast, because that is where our expertise is and because a coastal setting supplies every problem the discipline cares about within an hour's drive. Water quality, contaminant transport, climate impact, habitat loss and the regulatory machinery that responds to all of it.
What You Study
The first year is foundations: environmental science, oceanography and earth systems, alongside chemistry and statistics. The second and third years move into water quality and pollution, estuarine systems, and climate change and coasts. The fourth year is dominated by environmental impact assessment, which is the closest thing the program has to a capstone and is taught as a professional skill rather than as a topic.
Because it draws on three departments, this program has more genuine breadth than any other degree here, and students should expect that the coherence is something they build rather than something the timetable provides. The estuary is the connecting thread. Almost every course uses the Aldwych system as its worked example, and by the fourth year students know that estuary in a way that turns out to be portable — the questions are the same everywhere, only the geometry changes, which is why graduates of this program are found working on systems that look nothing like this one but present exactly the same set of problems in a different arrangement, and why the department has never seen a reason to broaden the case study when depth in one place has proven more useful than shallow coverage of several.
Where It Leads
Environmental consulting is the largest destination, followed by state and federal agency work, nonprofit and advocacy roles, and graduate study. The impact assessment training is directly employable, and students who have done it well are hired on the strength of it.
What To Expect
Field and laboratory work throughout, a genuine statistics requirement, and a good deal of writing. Impact assessment is a writing discipline as much as a scientific one, and the program treats it that way.
Curriculum
ENVS 140
Environmental Science Foundations
The systems view: energy, matter, populations and the human pressures acting on all three, with coastal examples throughout.
1
OCEA 110
Introduction to Oceanography
The ocean as a physical, chemical, geological and biological system. Taken by students across every program here.
1
GEOL 150
Earth Systems
Plate tectonics, the rock cycle, surface processes and deep time — the physical foundation the marine geoscience sequence builds on.
1
ENVS 250
Water Quality and Pollution
Contaminants in coastal water: what they are, where they come from, where they end up, and how to measure them defensibly.
1
ENVS 320
Estuarine Systems
Estuaries as physical, chemical and biological systems — including the trapping behavior that makes them accumulate what passes through.
1
ENVS 380
Climate Change and Coasts
Regional sea level, storm regime and coastal response — and how to present an uncertainty range so that it informs a decision instead of stopping one.
1
ENVS 460
Environmental Impact Assessment
The professional practice of impact assessment, taught as a writing discipline as much as a scientific one.
1.5Common questions
Yes, for all students entering directly from high school. Transfer students are housed as space allows, and the waitlist usually clears by mid-July.
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At a glance
- Credential awarded
- BS
- Degree level
- undergraduate
- Program length
- 4 years
- Start terms
- fall, spring
Program Lead
Dr. Clara Ndungu
Associate Professor of Environmental Science
MS / Certificate
Coastal Resilience
A professional master's for people who will make decisions about a shoreline that is moving. Taught jointly by the policy and ocean science departments.
