Going Green
Written by J.B. Bissell
MAE 2010 Volume: 5 Issue: 7 (September)
Every day, almost everywhere, we’re encouraged to recycle and renew, and it’s nearly impossible to watch a news program without hearing about one environmental situation or another. Yes, “going green” has become one of the 21st century’s most popular catchphrases, with common discussion topics ranging from holes in the ozone to melting ice caps to massive plastic-bottle islands drifting along the currents of the world’s oceans.
No doubt, those are the big, get-everybody’s-attention type topics. The fact of the matter, though, is that there are a number of problems much closer to home—landfills, soil quality, oil spills and so on—that desperately need more attention. And not just attention from activist groups and radio talk show hosts, but from real people with real know-how from all segments of society.
“Virtually every profession— every professional path a student can follow—has environmental issues,” said Dr. William G. Crumpton, an associate professor and chair of the environmental studies and environmental science programs at Iowa State University. Dr. Michele Morrone, associate professor and director of environmental studies at Ohio University, agreed: “We’re really seeing a shift now where business and industry are looking to environmental sustainability as a key component of operations.” Having some educational background in environmental studies “really enhances your marketability.”
DOUBLE TIME
To capitalize on that newfound marketability and prepare graduates to face both the jobs and the issues along all those professional pathways, Iowa State only offers an environmental studies curriculum as a secondary major. In other words, students cannot simply focus solely on environmental studies. That coursework must accompany another primary major. Morrone’s program at Ohio operates very similarly; students from other disciplines can earn a certificate in environmental studies.
“The academic vision for this is that the people who come to the table to deal with environmental problems are not 12 folks sitting around with environmental studies degrees,” Crumpton explained. “There’s a policy person, maybe somebody with a background in public administration or economics, and someone else might be a biologist. The people who actually address environmental problems are a mix of social and natural scientists.
“So the idea behind environmental studies as a second major is that if I have a student who’s a chemical engineering major … well, there are environmental issues relevant to chemical engineering and chemical engineers will be best suited to deal with those issues. If I train a person just in environmental studies, with no background in chemical engineering, there’s no way he or she can address specific concerns related to that field, such as treatment processes, efficiency and the overall greening of the industry.”
In some instances at least, students who complete this educational track will also have a bit of an advantage during their eventual job hunt. Say there are two architects applying for the same job with a firm that specializes in designing sustainable buildings. An Iowa State graduate with a major in architecture and the secondary major in environmental studies will probably be more attractive to that particular company.
“If you understand the deeper issues and your competitor doesn’t, you’re going to have a better chance to get that job,” Crumpton said. “We want to train the economist, the chemical engineer, the architect, the biologist, the fine arts major whose ultimate career path is in that particular field, but who wants to deal with the environment within their discipline.
“It takes different personalities and different expertise. It’s not a one-size-fits-all for this.” This explains why Iowa State also offers traditional undergraduate and graduate degrees in environmental science, a track that concentrates on the actual physical, chemical and biological aspects of various environmental systems.
SCIENTIFIC DISTINCTION
“There’s sort of a generic distinction between environmental studies and environmental science,” explained David L. Brown, a professor and chair of the department of geological and environmental sciences at California State University, Chico. “Environmental studies programs tend to be non-science—policy, recycling programs, all kinds of different social and economic avenues, and maybe some business and finance things.
“We offer a degree program—a bachelor’s and master’s— in environmental science, which is science-based. It’s an inherently interdisciplinary field, and that distinguishes it from geology or biology. It looks at those, but it combines other areas of physics and chemistry and soil science and hydrology, so students, even at the bachelor’s level, get a good breadth of coursework and training.”
They can do a little specialization too. Currently, CSU Chico offers five separate concentrations in environmental science: applied ecology, atmospheric science, environmental chemistry, earth resource science and hydrologic science. “They allow students to target their field of interest more—maybe the restoration of endangered species habitat and other things like that,” Brown said.
Another subject that generates a lot of interest within the environmental community is energy. Certainly, it’s one of the biggest challenges facing the next generation of scholars—and most likely the next generation after that. Brown and his fellow instructors are up to the task.
“The earth resource science option is probably going to be renamed the energy and earth resource science,” he said. “We have some very strong faculty members who are interested in energy-related work, including both renewable—wind and solar—and traditional energy: oil, fossil fuel, bio-fuel.”
Brown is also in the early stages of retooling the environmental chemistry specialty into a pollution science offering. It will focus on water and air quality, and will prime students for careers that deal with the management of soil pollution, hazardous waste, site cleanup and remediation, and more.
Like the environment itself, “Our programs are not static, they’re adaptive,” Brown said.
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
To a certain extent, students are encouraged to do some adapting of their own. In addition to choosing between environmental studies and science, as well as the assorted specialty options, prospective learners also should give each school’s location some consideration.
Loyola University Chicago’s Department of Natural Science boasts an environmental science and studies program that awards bachelor’s degrees in both fields. Like the other institutions, these are very interdisciplinary courses of study, combining classes in biology, chemistry and physics with lessons in philosophy, history, political science, English and more.
What separates Loyola University Chicago, however, is its setting in the Windy City. While it might seem predictable for more rural college campuses to focus on all matters relating to Mother Nature, one must remember that skyscrapers, neighborhoods full of brownstone houses and expressways all create their own sorts of environmental concerns that must be addressed.
“We deal with diverse issues, including environmental justice and urban planning,” said Dr. Christopher G. Peterson, professor and director of the environmental studies and sciences program at Loyola. Students also are encouraged to get involved in numerous community outreach projects associated with Loyola’s Center for Urban Environmental Research & Policy. One of the most popular is a “partnership with Common Ground, a local restaurant, to maintain their rooftop organic garden,” Peterson added. Finally, an environmental sustainability class, which “has a civic engagement component that has included the development of sustainability plans for local neighborhoods,” is a required course.
Meanwhile, down south at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, students concentrate more on coastlines and wetlands than they do on urban development. “Our program focuses a lot on the Gulf Coast area—estuaries, rivers, bays and more. The various faculty specialties emphasize the coastal environment,” said Klaus J. Meyer- Arendt, Ph.D., professor and chair of the department of environmental studies.
West Florida offers both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental science, and definitely caters to people who truly want to get involved and get their hands dirty. It may sound cliché, but at West Florida, the outdoors really is part of the classroom. “Most of our courses—hydrology, soils, coastal morphology and so on—are labbased, and those labs are a mix of inside and in the field. Plus, several faculty members have ongoing research projects and typically a half dozen or so students are hired to work on those,” said Meyer-Arendt.
And while the school’s location is critical to Meyer-Arendt’s own work, he was trained as a coastal geomorphologist. “So one of my interests is how beaches and shorelines are modified by humans,” he noted. The bottom line is that no matter where one chooses to study, there are plenty of opportunities in the field—jobs to be had at the regulatory level, in the private sector and in education.
PROBLEMS AND OPPORTUNITIES
Part of the reason for all those opportunities, of course, is that we’re facing so many problems. Climate change, the rise of sea level, coral reefs dying, environmental disasters, polluted water run-off, the list goes on and on. But another component, a much more positive one, is that, according to Brent M. Haddad, MBA, Ph.D., who is the director of the Center for Integrated Water Research and a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, “Environmental studies is a very flexible degree. You can make of it what you want, and students who challenge themselves get rewarded with interesting opportunities both in school and beyond.”
Indeed, UCSC has an undergraduate degree and doctorate program in environmental studies, as well as an available bachelor’s of science in either earth sciences or ecology and evolutionary biology. “Students can focus on the policy and economics side, or on the scientific side,” Haddad explained. “We have a wide variety of classes, from traveling around California studying different ecosystems to studying geographic information systems in computer laboratories to more traditional lecture courses.”
All the flexibility, the assortment of class offerings, internships and off-campus lab work is crucial to the success of this particular educational field because, as Haddad said, it facilitates “students getting practice integrating multiple perspectives to help understand and solve a complex environmental problem. The solution requires knowledge of biology and other sciences, engineering, policy, economics and social constraints. Someone has to put all the pieces together to get to an answer, and environmental studies students are given this training.”
Perhaps even more important is that students are simply increasing their awareness. They’re not all going to go out and solve major crises, but maybe they all can help to prevent new ones. Ohio University’s Dr. Morrone calls it “environmental literacy.” “We talk about students who have the knowledge, skills and abilities that lead to environmental action, changing environmental behaviors. It’s more than just ‘What do you know about the environment,’ it’s ‘What can you do?’
“Everybody should have that basic environmental literacy before they graduate. These types of programs allow for that to be quantified and put on your transcript.” ♦