Courses
Climate Studies Major Courses Required | Environmental and Sustainability Studies Minor Courses Required
Below are courses required for the major and minor curriculum. Please consult the Vanderbilt undergraduate catalog or YES (enrolled students only) for further information.
Courses Required for the Climate Studies Major
- Climate Studies Introduction – ENVS 1101 – Foundations of Climate Studies
- Climate Science Foundation – One course in the area of climate science:
- EES 2110, Introduction to Climate Change
- EES 3310, Global Clmate Change
- Core Humanities Course – One course in the humanities with climate-related focus:
- ASIA 2308, Narratives of Disaster and Apocalypse
- CSET 3320W, Environmental Journalism: Investigating Climate Change
- ENGL 3730, Literature and Environment
- ENGL 3731, Climate and Literature: Contemporary U.S. Climate Fiction
- HART 3233, Climate and Society: Drowning Cities
- HIST 1530, Climate History
- RLST 3472, Religion and Climate Change
- Core Social Sciences Course – One course in the social sciences with climate-related focus:
- ANTH 1111, First-Year Writing Seminar (see current courses for approved offering)
- ANTH 2114, Above and Below the Surface: The Caribbean between Climate Change and Tourism
- ANTH 2225, Climate Change, Collapse, and Sustainability in History
- ECON 4050, Topics in Econometrics (see current courses for approved offering)
- PSCI 3266, Climate Change Justice
- SOC 3311, Climate Change and Society
- SOC 3317, Energy Transitions and Society
- Core Natural Sciences Course – One course in the natural sciences with a climate-related focus:
- EES 1080, Earth and Atmosphere
- EES 2510, Earth Systems through Time
- EES 3333, Climate and Society: Drowning Cities
- EES 4440, Glacial Geology
- EES 4650, Physics of the Climate System
- EES 4680, Paleoclimates
- EES 4750, Sustainability: An Environmental Perspective
- Methods and Practices Course – Two courses from the following:
- ANTH 2400, Public Health, Language, Media, and Risk Management
- ANTH 3120, Sociocultural Field Methods
- ANTH 3125, Public Scholarship Practicum in Community Research
- ANTH 3261, Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing
- BME 2400, Quantitative Methods 1: Statistical Analysis
- CE 3300, Risk Reliability, and Resilience Engineering
- CMST 1501, Public Communication of Science
- CMST 3800, Communication and Media Studio
- CSET 2100, Science Communication Tools and Techniques
- CSET 3257, Virtual Reality Design
- CS 1000, The Beauty and Joy of Computing
- CS 2204, Program Design and Data Structures for Scientific Computing
- DHUM 1100, Introduction to Digital Humanities
- DHUM 1200, Digital Public Humanities
- DHUM 1400, Introduction to Video Games
- DS 1000, Data Science: How Data Shape Our World
- DS 1100, Applied Programming and Problem Solving with Python
- DS 2100, Statistics for Data Science
- DS 3100, Fundamentals of Data Science
- ECON 1500, Economic Statistics
- ECON 1510, Intensive Economic Statistics
- ECON 3035, Econometric Methods
- HART 1740W, Introduction to Design Studios
- HART 2815, Digital Heritage: Methods and Practice
- HIST 1515, Virtual Reality and the Humanities
- HODC 3222, Action Research and Program Evaluation
- HOD 3262, Social Entrepreneurship
- MATH 1010, Probability and Statistical Inference
- MATH 1100, Survey of Calculus
- MATH 1201, Single-Variable Calculus II
- MATH 1301, Accelerated Single-Variable Calculus II
- MATH 2810, Probability and Statistics for Engineering
- MATH 2821, Introduction to Applied Statistics
- PSY 2100, Quantitative Methods
- PSY-PC 2100, Quantitative Methods
- PSY-PC 2120, Statistical Analysis
- SOC 2100, Statistics for Social Scientists
- SOC 3002, Introduction to Social Research
- Nine credit hours. See the director of undergraduate studies for recommended concentration clusters. The nine additional credit hours may come from any of the courses listed above for #3, 4, and 5. They may also include the following additional courses:
- ANTH 2109, Food Politics in America
- ANTH 2150, Urban Ecology
- ANTH 2220, Human Landscapes
- ANTH 3138, Global Food Politics
- ANTH 3202, The Collapse of Civilizations
- ANTH 3333W, Topics (see current courses for approved offering)
- ANTH 4145, Commons iSeminar (see current courses for approved offering)
- ASIA 2306, Environment and Development in South Asia
- ASIA 2309W, Mountains to the Sea: Perspectives on Society, Politics, and the Environment
- BSCI 1511, Introduction to Biological Sciences
- BSCI 2238, Ecology
- BSCI 3231, Paleobiology
- BSCI 3233, Conservation Biology
- EES 2150, Science, Risk, and Policy
- EES 2309W, Mountains to the Sea: Perspectives on Society, Politics, and the Environment
- EES 2480, Earth System Dynamics
- EES 3220, Life Through Time
- EES 3280, Environmental Geochemistry
- EES 3330, Sedimentology
- EES 4233, Conservation Biology
- EES 4300, Earth’s Natural Resources
- ECON 2170, Environmental Economics
- ENVE 3610, Sustainable Development
- ENVE 4305, Enterprise Risk Management
- ENVS 4101, Society and the Environment Capstone
- ENVS 4101W, Society and Environment Capstone
- CE 2120, Sustainable Design in Civil Engineering
- CE 3300, Risk, Reliability, and Resilience Engineering
- CE 4300, Reliability and Risk Case Studies
- CSET 3240W, Pop Science: The Art and Impact of Popular Science Writing
- CSET 3890. Special Topics (see current courses for approved offering)
- ENGL 2330W, Introduction to Environmental Humanities
- ENGL 3240W, Literature and Analytical Thinking
- HART 1740W, Introduction to Design Studies
- HART 3240W, Ancient Landscapes
- HODI 3270, Global Sustainable Development
- HODI 3650 01, Environmental Politics and Justice
- HODI 3650 02, Environmental Health: Water Justice
- SOC 1030, Environment and Society
- SOC 3314, Environmental Inequality and Justice
- SOC 3312, Environment and Development
- SOC 3316, Business, Civil Society, and the Environment
- SOC 3318, Sociology of Green Jobs
- SOC 3119, NGOs, Society, and the Environment
- SOC 3321, Population and Society
- PSCI 3253, Ethics and Public Policy
- PSCI 3264W, Global Feminisms
- PSCI 3265, Human Rights in Activism
- UNIV 3315/5315, Planetary Health, Policy and Social Justice
Courses Required for the Environmental and Sustainability Studies Minor
Students must take a minimum of six courses (18 credit hours total) chosen from the courses listed below; additional relevant courses may be counted with approval from the program’s director of undergraduate studies. Courses must be distributed as follows: (A) one natural science and technology-intensive course; (B) one humanities course; (C) one social-behavioral sciences and policy-intensive course; (D) two additional courses from B and/or C; and (E) a capstone course. No more than two courses may be at the 1000 level. In addition, no more than 3 credit hours may be counted simultaneously toward both the environmental and sustainability studies minor and any other major or minor. *Special topic and first-year writing seminar courses require the approval of the director of undergraduate studies to count toward the minor.
One course from the list below:
- BSCI 1103, Green Earth: The Biodiversity and Evolution of Plants
- BSCI 2238, Ecology
- BSCI 2238L, Ecology Lab
- BSCI 3233, Conservation Biology
- EES 1030, Oceanography
- EES 1070, Volcanoes: Impacts on Earth and Society
- EES 1080, Earth and Atmosphere
- EES 1111*, First-Year Writing Seminar
- EES 1140, Ecology, Evolution, and Climates Through Time
- ES 1510, The Dynamic Earth: Introduction to Geological Sciences
- EES 1510L, Dynamic Earth Laboratory
- EES 2110, Introduction to Climate Change
- EES 2150, Science, Risk, and Policy
- EES 2510, Earth Systems Through Time
- EES 3220, Life Through Time
- EES 3220W, Life Through Time
- EES 3310, Global Climate Change
- EES 3333, Climate and Society: Drowning Cities
- EES 4650, Physics of the Climate System
- EES 4680, Paleoclimates
- EES 4750, Sustainability: An Environmental Science Perspective
- EES 4760, Agent- and Individual-Based Computational Modeling
- EES 4820, Paleocological Methods
- ENVE 3610, Sustainable Development
- ENVE 4615, Environmental Assessments
- ENVE 4700, Energy and Water Resources
- ES 1115*, Engineering Freshman Seminar
One of any of the following courses:
- AMER 1111*, First-Year Writing Seminar
- AMER 4000*, Research Methods Workshop
- AMER 4100*, Undergraduate Seminar in American Studies
- CSET 3320W, Environmental Journalism: Investigating Climate Change
- ENGL 2316/2316W*, Representative American Writers
- ENGL 3720/3720W*, Literature, Science, and Technology
- ENGL 3730, Literature and the Environment
- ENGL 3731, Climate and Literature: Contemporary U.S. Climate Fiction
- ENGL 3898/3898W*, Special Topics in English and American Literature
- GSS (formerly WGS) 2268, Gender, Race, Justice, and the Environment
- GSS (formerly WGS) 2270, Ecofeminism: Theory, Politics, Action
- HART 2150, East Asian Architecture and Gardens
- HART 3240W, Ancient Landscapes
- HART 2782, Storied Places: History of Landscape Design
- HART 3790, Monumental Landscapes of Provence
- HIST 1470, History of Exploration
- HIST 1480, The Darwinian Revolution
- HIST 1520, Science and the Sea
- HIST 2139, Technology, Nature and Power in Africa
- HIST 2413, Global History of Waste
- HIST 2413W, Global History of Waste
- PHIL 1111*, First-Year Writing Seminar
- PHIL 3611, Environmental Philosophy
- PHIL 3612, Ethics and Animals
- RLST 2472, Religion, Ecology, and Power in Africa
- RLST 3472, Religion and Climate Change
- RLST 3921, Ethics and Ecology
One course from the list below:
- ANTH 1111*, First-Year Writing Seminar
- ANTH 2109, Food Politics in America
- ANTH 2114, Commons iSeminar
- ANTH 2150, Urban Ecology
- ANTH 2220, Human Landscapes
- ANTH 2220W, Human Landscapes
- ANTH 2225, Climate Change, Collapse, and Sustainability in History
- ANTH 2227, Food in the Ancient World
- ANTH 3138, Global Food Politics
- ANTH 3261, Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing
- ANTH 4154, Environmental Anthropology
- ECON 2170, Environmental Economics
- GSS (formerly WGS) 1111*, First-Year Writing Seminar
- HOD 3270, Global Sustainable Development
- PSCI 3266, Climate Change Justice
- PSY 1111*, First-Year Writing Seminar
- SOC 1020/1020W*, Contemporary Social Issues
- SOC 1030, Environment and Society
- SOC 1111*, First-Year Writing Seminar
- SOC 3311, Climate Change and Society
- SOC 3312, Environment and Development
- SOC 3313, Sociology of Health and Environmental Science
- SOC 3314, Environmental Inequality and Justice
- SOC 3315, Human Ecology and Society
- SOC 3316, Business, Civil Society, and the Environment
- SOC 3317, Energy Transitions and Society
- SOC 3318, Sociology of Green Jobs
- SOC 3319, NGOs, Society, and the Environment
- SOC 3321, Population and Society
Two additional courses from lists B and/or C above.
Students in the minor in environmental and sustainability studies take a capstone course that provides a detailed overview of the primary concepts in environmental and sustainability studies and allows them to develop a research paper that also qualifies for Immersion credit. The capstone paper can be used in subsequent applications to graduate school.
One of the following courses is required (for minors only):
- ENVS 4101, Society and the Environment Capstone
- ENVS 4101W, Society and the Environment Capstone
Undergraduate Catalog YES (enrolled students) Apply to Vanderbilt