Environmental Studies Major

Yale's Environmental Studies Major offers an interdisciplinary approach to understanding and responding to environmental problems. From the natural sciences, students learn experimental techniques and methods of analysis needed to make accurate observations, to document change, and to understand the dynamics of healthy landscapes and functioning ecosystems. From the humanities and social sciences, students gain insights into human behavior and the workings of our social, political, and economic institutions. The Environmental Studies Major prepares students for graduate study in a range of disciplines including law, medicine, and public health, and for careers in business, environmental management and conservation, teaching, and writing.

Majors must take at least 2 core courses from both the humanities and social sciences (Group A) & the environmental and natural sciences (Group B). Core courses can fulfill Yale College distributional requirements.

Group A: Humanities and Social Sciences

• EVST 120: Introduction to Environmental History. (Paul Sabin) Survey of interactions between people and natural environments in North America from precolonial times to the present, including ecological, political, cultural, and economic dimensions. The rise of modern conservation and environmental movements; development of public policy.
• EVST 226: Global Environmental History. (Harvey Weiss) The dynamic relationship between environmental and social forces from the Pleistocene to the present. Pleistocene extinctions; transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture; origins of cities, states, and civilization in Mesopotamia and Egypt; adaptations and collapses of early Old and New World civilizations in the face of environmental disasters; the destruction and reconstruction of the New World by the Old.
• EVST 255: Environmental Politics and Law. (John Wargo) Exploration of the politics, policy, and law associated with attempts to manage environmental quality and natural resources. Themes of democracy, liberty, power, property, equality, causation, and risk. Case histories include air quality, water quality and quantity, pesticides and toxic substances, land use, agriculture and food, parks and protected areas, and energy.
• EVST 340: Economics of Natural Resources. (Robert Mendelsohn) Microeconomic theory brought to bear on current issues in natural resource policy. Topics include regulation of pollution, hazardous waste management, depletion of the world's forests and fisheries, wilderness and wildlife preservation, and energy planning.
• EVST 345: Environmental Anthropology. (Michael Dove) History of the anthropological study of the environment. The nature-culture dichotomy, ecology and social organization, methodological debates, and the politics of the environment.

Group B: Environmental and Natural Sciences

• EVST 201 & 202L: Atmosphere, Ocean and Environmental Change. (Ronald Smith) Physical processes that control Earth's atmosphere, ocean, and climate. Quantitative methods for constructing energy and water budgets. Topics include clouds, rain, severe storms, regional climate, the ozone layer, air pollution, ocean currents and productivity, the seasons, El Niño, the history of Earth's climate, global warming, energy, and water resources.
• EVST 223: General Ecology. (David Vasseur and David Post) The theory and practice of ecology, including the ecology of individuals, population dynamics and regulation, community structure, ecosystem function, and ecological interactions at broad spatial and temporal scales. Topics such as climate change, fisheries management, and infectious diseases are placed in an ecological context.

A total of 12.5 - 13.5 course credits, in addition to the prerequisite courses, are required for the major. They include 4 core courses, a junior seminar, two terms of the senior seminar, and 6 concentration courses. These courses must be taken for a letter grade.