ENTS Junior Colloquium -- Spring 2000
May 4, 2000
To: Students enrolled in ENTS 298 - Ethics and Values Colloquium (Spring Term)
From: Mary Savina, Geology Department; Phil Camill, Biology Department; Deborah Gross and Will Hollingsworth, Chemistry Department; Dale Jamieson, ENTS; Rachel Smit, ENTS 5th year assistant.
The third meeting of the colloquium is scheduled for May 21 at 2:30 p.m. in the Science Annex. You’ll want to come early for the ice-cream social that starts at 1 p.m.!
Before the third meeting, each pair of students will study how environmental science is structured in the undergraduate curriculum of another college or university and prepare a short written report (due at the session on May 21). Again, Rachel Smit will have a master list, so that we can cover a lot of programs to compare with ours at Carleton. Part of the discussion at the third session will include reports on these programs. Consider these questions related to environmental science curricula:
- Does the school have a separate environmental science major at the undergraduate level? If it has both environmental science and environmental studies, what is the relationship between the two programs? What is the emphasis of the environmental science program (earth system science, environmental monitoring...)? What is the relationship between the environmental science program and the other science programs and departments? How is the science program for non-science students structured? (You may need to check out the natural science requirements and science department course listings.)
- In this program, what is the balance between breadth and depth in undergraduate environmental science? What do you think is the appropriate balance? Can one person be an environmental chemist and an environmental biologist and an environmental geologist? What is the best undergraduate background for a "global change-ologist?"
- What do non-scientists need to know about environmental science and how should undergraduate programs be structured to help these students?
- How is environmental science taught in this program? (We’ll want to discuss the variety of approaches during our discussion.) What is the relationship between global earth systems science and local environmental science? (At Carleton, we try to use the local environment and communities to explore global issues.)
Here’s a first crack at a list of schools and programs, along with a web site that will get you started. In most cases, you’ll want to follow links to other, related programs at the institution to find out what’s going on. If you have friend(s) attending one of these schools, we encourage you to ask them about their perceptions of how their environmental science programs are structured.
1. UC Berkeley (Ted Salk):
http://ls.berkeley.edu/ugis/environ/
2. University of Colorado (Katie Kolarich and Jamie Johnson) Many places. You might start with:
http://terra.colorado.edu/env_prog/
and http://cires.colorado.edu/academics.html
3. Brown (Kellie Hoyt and Sarah Montag):
http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Environmental_Studies/
4. Duke (Michelle Giacobbe and Alicia Hancock):
5. Oberlin (Max Wilson):
6. Penn State (Rich Higgins and Zach Seder):
7. UC Davis (Beth Lowham):
8. Columbia (Anna Coldham and Aaron Swoboda):
http://rainbow.ldeo.columbia.edu/ees/
9. UMass Amherst (Eric Shoemaker and Monica Thilges)
10. Middlebury (Kate Anders and Anne Hillman)
http://www.middlebury.edu/~es/
11. Williams (Kevin Jacobs and Tifin Calcagni) :
http://www.williams.edu:803/CES/
12. Lehigh:
13. UC Irvine
http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/global/global.htm
14. Colby (Jamie Levine and Jason Mulvihill-Kunz):
http://www.colby.edu/catalogue/ensci.shtml
15. Allegheny
http://www.alleg.edu/academics/EnvSci/
http://ceed.alleg.edu/ceed/ceedhome.html
16. Carleton
The meeting on the 21st will be the final formal meeting of the term. Remember that there’s a 4-5 page paper due on the last day of exams. See the first colloquium handout from the term for details.