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Environmental Science

Nature's Pasts, Nature's Futures: Perspectives on India's Environmental History
Mahesh Rangarajan, distinguished Indian researcher, author, political analyst, and environmental and colonial historian, gives a 2013 lecture on India's future environmental and economical challenges.

The Department of the Geophysical Sciences offers a bachelor of science degree in Environmental Science. The program is designed to prepare students to enter a variety of interdisciplinary fields in the environmental sciences, including the interface of environmental science and public policy. Students are given the opportunity to study topics such as the chemistry and dynamics of the ocean and atmosphere, climate change, biogeochemical cycles, ecology, conservation, and environmentally relevant aspects of economics and policy. Undergraduate research is strongly encouraged.

The department typically sponsors several trips each year that range in length from one day to five weeks. Destinations of trips have included areas as far afield as Newfoundland; the Canadian Rockies; Baja, California; the Caribbean; Italy; and Iceland. The shorter trips are mostly scheduled in connection with undergraduate and graduate lecture courses. However, the trips are open to all students if space permits. The longer trips are designed as undergraduate field courses.