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The faculty and students in Ohio Wesleyan's Environment & Sustainability Department care deeply about the environmental challenges facing our communities and the world, and they are engaged in the necessary work to protect and preserve the environment for generations to come.
The department offers you three majors and a variety of approaches and perspectives for understanding the full scope of environmental issues facing our global society.
When you combine these degrees with OWU's traditional liberal arts core, you are well equipped for leadership, service, careers, and continued learning in a world where environmental issues are of vital importance.
We also offer a minor in Food Studies as a joint program between the Environment & Sustainability and the Health & Human Kinetics departments.
Alumni from majors in OWU's Environment & Sustainability Department are scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, educators, healthcare providers, advocates, and more. They're pursuing successful careers in government agencies (such as the EPA, FEMA, and the U.S. Geological Survey), nonprofit organizations (such as zoos, The Carter Center, and The Nature Conservancy), educational institutions (including the University of California, Berkeley, University of California, San Diego, and Villanova), and private industry and healthcare organizations across the nation. They have earned graduate, medical, and professional degrees at outstanding universities.
Students, faculty, staff, and community members work together on campus and in regional projects. The entire campus community makes sustainability work at OWU.
You can put your learning into action by developing a sustainability project on campus or in Delaware. Students choose locations to conduct their research and collect data to investigate solutions to real-world problems. You can serve on the Sustainability Task Force, work with a faculty mentor on a research project, and present the results of your research at OWU's annual student symposium. See the OWU Sustainability Blog for a list of past projects.
You can participate in local and regional internships with the Stratford Ecological Center, Preservation Parks of Delaware County, Seminary Hill Farm, and the City of Delaware, among others.
You can join environmentally themed Travel-Learning Courses in the Caribbean, Brazil, Costa Rica, and others.
Environmental Science at OWU is an interdisciplinary, natural science approach to the environment. Diverse courses help students integrate scientific understanding of the environment with an emphasis on addressing current environmental challenges.
The major's 13 courses include core courses, an independent study, and a variety of electives across departments. If you are interested in a career or studying environmental studies at the graduate level, then you are encouraged to take additional courses in the natural sciences, including chemistry.
Geographers use tools such as mapping, Geographic Information Systems, and community interviews to study natural and human patterns as they vary over geographic space as well as the interaction between humans and their natural environments. Students are prepared for careers in urban and regional planning, environmental and resource management, Geographic Information Systems, and areas of business that deal with location (logistics).
Two core requirements: BOMI 233 and ENVS 110; Two natural science / quantitative units: BIOL 122 (+lab), GEOL 110, CHEM 110 (+lab) or CHEM 230, and MATH 105 or MATH 230 or MATH 200.3 or PSYC 210; Two natural science / physical geography units: BOMI 252 (+lab), BOMI 255 (+lab), BOMI 337 (+lab), BOMI 344 (+lab), BOMI 355 (+lab), CHEM 260 (+lab), CHEM 261 (+lab), CHEM 270 (+lab), GEOG 353, GEOG 369, GEOG 375, GEOL 270, GEOL 275, GEOL 280, GEOL 285, GEOL 320 (+lab), MATH 200.2, MATH 280, ZOOL 311 (+lab), ZOOL 313 (+lab), ZOOL 341 (+lab), ZOOL 345 (+lab), ZOOL 347 (+lab), ZOOL 349 (+lab), and ZOOL 353
Five key environmental courses: BIOL 122, BOMI 233, GEOG 347, and (GEOG 360, or ECON 366, or PG 280).
The Food Studies minor is a self-designed minor for students who want to explore diverse issues related to food. Each student will identify an OWU faculty member associated with the Food Studies minor to serve as their mentor and create a proposal in collaboration with their mentor, outlining courses and projects that fit with their specific interests in food; They also must complete 5.5 units of coursework.
Professor Rowley has supervised student research in or related to Costa Rica, Greenland, East Asia, the Gulf of Mexico, Chicago, and other spots around the world.
In 2015, Professor Anderson was recognized as the Ohio Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
To help organize campuswide sustainability efforts, Professor Krygier developed a practicum course in which the students created a campus sustainability plan and presented it to the OWU president.
Brianna Graber '20 was recognized by the Keep Delaware County Beautiful coalition for her project to install a storm drain net in the Delaware Run. The net captured waste from the water, and Graber monitored the impact on the stream's water quality. She chose the project for her OWU Geography 360 class, "environmental geography," because she wanted "to do something big."
The Kraus preserve is 80 acres and the Bohannan preserve is 54 acres. Students and faculty use them as outdoor labs and for research.
In Travel-Learning Courses, students work with faculty in the field from Alaska to Costa Rica to Brazil. Here, Professor Laurie Anderson's class studies ecosystems in the Utah high desert.
The Environment and Wildlife Club teaches environmental responsibility. The club usually hosts speakers and educational programs.
OWU's greenhouse has two rooms available for students, a tropical and desert room. The greenhouse is used for teaching classes, but you can use it for independent research.
You can be selected to participate in the Summer Science Program where you research with fellow students and faculty for 10 weeks. You then present your research at the Patricia Belt Conrades Summer Science Research Symposium in the fall.