Geosciences
The minor in Earth Sciences is designed to introduce the student to the fundamental knowledge base, skill set and techniques related to understanding Earth system history, processes and interactions. The minor includes broad exposure to the spheres of the Earth – land, water, life, air – as well as approaches used to understand, assess and solve basic Earth Science problems.
The purpose of the Environmental Geology minor is to provide the student knowledge
and
expertise in addressing issues related to the interactions between society and the
Earth system.
The student can focus on landscape formation, ocean science, resources, hazards and/or
environment-human impacts with this more specialized Geology minor.
The purpose of the Environmental Studies minor is to provide the student with knowledge and expertise in addressing issues related to interactions between people and the environment. The minor includes broad exposure of contemporary global, national, and local environmental and natural resource issues. In addition, the student will gain knowledge and skills used in allied science disciplines.
The purpose of the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) minor is to allow students to develop skills in GIS. Students completing the minor will learn to use a GIS to store, analyze, and display geographic data. GIS has many applications in fields such as geography, planning, environmental studies, geology, utilities, and business.
Geography is an interdisciplinary field that takes a spatial approach to studying phenomena. Geographical skills and viewpoints are desirable and useful in a wide range of applications and career areas. Geographers are interested in how physical or human-related phenomena are distributed across space (mapping), the underlying phenomena (i.e., resources, cultures, households, energy, ideas, etc.) are transferred from one place to another, and predicting or planning for future distributions of phenomena. Using a spatial point of view, a geographer can focus on any of a wide range of topics that include physical geography, human geography, and human-environment interactions. Because of this, geography pairs very well with many other fields of study from the physical sciences to the social sciences to the humanities to computer sciences.
The minor in Geology is designed to introduce the student to the fundamental concepts of the traditional geological sciences. Depending on GEOS course selection, however, students can design a minor that incorporates geologic content beyond the realm of the traditional program.
The minor includes broad exposure to rock-forming processes and Earth history as well
as the knowledge base, skill set and techniques used to solve basic geologic problems.
The minor in Weather and Climate provides an overview of the processes that control both past and present-day weather and climate. It is designed for students who are pursuing careers in fields such as environmental science, environmental policy, journalism, and communication, where a knowledge of the factors that influence weather and climate will prove to be beneficial professionally or simply for those students who wish to become better consumers of the weather and climate information they are exposed to on a daily basis.
