Environmental sciences and studies encourage critical and scientific perspectives on the natural and human systems that surround us.
Coursework Ways to Get Involved Meet Your Professors Alumni Outcomes
This ultimately creates opportunities to explore innovative, interdisciplinary solutions to Earth’s most pressing environmental issues: climate change, biodiversity, renewable energy, and environmental justice, among many others.
The rigorous, forward-thinking courses across disciplines like urban and environmental policy, biology, geology, and religious studies—coupled with immersive student-led initiatives and extracurriculars—will prepare you to tackle the complexities of the changing environmental landscape. From lab to lecture to internships and fieldwork, the expansive scope of environmental courses and programs at Oxy will push you to develop both scientific and critical perspectives on social and environmental dynamics. Training in empirical research, quantitative analysis, and interdisciplinary inquiry will provide you with theoretical and practical approaches to understand complex systems and effectively strive for a more just and sustainable world for all of Earth’s inhabitants.
The academic breadth and flexibility a liberal arts education allows students to create interdisciplinary connections, regardless of chosen academic path. Many students choose to take courses across departments and mix-and-match between environmental concentrations, minors, and majors. At Oxy, students can study the environment across a variety of programs, including:
- Geology and biology, offering students a concentration in environmental science
- Biology, offering a concentration in marine biology
- A major in urban and environmental policy
- A minor in food studies
In addition to the programs listed above and the courses below, many departments at Oxy offer special topics courses with environmental themes.
Coursework
Courses that discuss the multifaceted aspects of the environment are offered in several departments every semester, including:
Biology
BIO 105: Marine Biology
BIO 110: Introductory Biology: Biodiversity, Ecology, and Evolution
BIO 260: Biodiversity and Organization of Marine Ecosystems
BIO 270: Ecology
BIO 275: Flora of Southern California
BIO 360: Avian Biology
BIO 372: Global Change Biology
BIO 363: Functional Marine Ecology
BIO 103: Topics in Biology: Ecological Enhancement and Restoration
Black Studies
BLST 212: Fueling the Green Energy Revolution: The New Scramble for Africa
BLST 218: Black Ecological Thought
BLST 343: Black Ecology Collaboratory
Critical Theory and Social Justice
CTSJ 201: Environmental Injustice: Race, Poverty, and the Law
CTSJ 375: Indigenous Feminisms
Diplomacy and World Affairs
DWA 351: Junior Seminar: Advanced Topics in Global Sustainability
Economics
ECON 201: Sustainability Lab
ECON 304: Natural Resource Economics
ECON 323: Urban Economics
ECON 301: Environmental Economics and Policy
Geology
GEO 105: Earth: Our Environment
GEO 210: Water in a Changing World
GEO215: Evolution of the Earth
GEO230: Geohazards
GEO 225: Earth: A field perspective
GEO245: Earth’s Climate System
GEO255: Remote Exploration of the Earth
GEO380: Environmental Geochemistry
GEO 390: Critical Minerals for the Green Economy
GEO390: Science of Soils
Latino/a and Latin American Studies
LLAS 390: Los Angeles and the Global Food Economy
LLAS 355: Indigenous Peoples of Mexico
Physics
PHYS 108: Energy Conversions and Resources Politics
Politics
POLS 295: Topics in Politics. The Politics of Climate Change
Philosophy
PHIL 231: Environmental and Animal Ethics
Sociology
SOC 240: Sociology of Food
SOC 285: Environmental Sociology
Spanish Studies
SPAN 361: Nature and the Environment in Spanish Literature
Religious Studies
RELS 120: How to Live in the Midst of Dying: Religion and Climate Change
RELS 205: Holy Sh*t! Engaging with the Materiality of Religion
Urban and Environmental Policy
UEP 101: Environment and Society
UEP 120: Food, Energy, and Sustainability Team (FEAST)
UEP 240: Urban Sustainability: Raising Animals as Part of Regenerative Agriculture
UEP 246: Sustainable Oxy
UEP 247: Sustainable Oxy: Urban Agriculture and Sustainable Landscape Practicum
UEP 300: Environmental Law and Policy
UEP 301: Urban Policy and Politics
UEP 306: Food and the Environment
UEP 150: Geographic Information Science I
Ways to Get Involved
- Participate in undergraduate research in the Anderson Center for Environmental Science with the Moore Lab of Zoology or the Vantuna Research Group, or with the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI). Immerse yourself in student-driven sustainability initiatives and clubs, such as Touchdown Thrift, Biology Club, FEAST Garden, and Sunrise Oxy.
- Explore the complex Los Angeles environmental landscape in community-based learning classes or through UEPI or InternLA internship programs.