Undergraduate Courses

Please visit the schedule builder for more information about specific course offerings and to add a course to your schedule.

SUST 1903: Campus Sustainability and Climate Action
This freshman seminar immerses student Sustainability Advocates in real-world sustainability experiences and serves as an introduction to climate action in a local context. This course provides a unique opportunity for students to experience the concepts of sustainability using their campus as a living learning lab and get an inside look at how Facilities Management operates our campus.

SUST 3003: Sustainable People, Sustainable Planet
Students will explore the scientific, cultural, ethical and economic concepts that affect environmental sustainability and global economic justice.
Meets Environment LE requirement

SUST 3017: Environmental Justice
The course focuses on understanding the interconnections between health, economic and environmental disparities as it applies to environmental justice.
Meets Diversity and Social Justice in the U.S. LE requirement

SUST 4004: Sustainable Communities
Students will learn public processes and metrics, engage with community members and make a tangible difference in the Twin Cities Metro Area with their class projects.

SUST 4096: Sustainability Internship
Become part of a supportive cohort for developing professional and leadership skills. Explore strategies for spearheading social change in regards to sustainability through community-based internships. We encourage students with financial need to apply for an Ecolab Scholarship for your internship. Learn More About SUST 4096.

Please visit the schedule builder for more information about specific course offerings and to add a course to your schedule.

ARCH 4561: Architecture and Ecology
This course will introduce theories and practices of ecological approaches to architectural design. Ecological context, implications and opportunities for architecture will be discussed, as well as the historical and theoretical framework for ecological design thinking. Issues will be studied at various scales, including site/community, building and component.

BBE 1201: Renewable Energy, Climate Change, Society and the Environment
In this course, students explore our wide range of traditional and renewable energy sources and how these options impact our environment and society. Students are also exposed to the complex and compelling ethical issues raised by global, national and local changes in how we produce and use energy.
Meets Technology and Society Liberal Education requirement | Online and open to all locations

BBE 3201: Sustainability of Food Systems: A Life Cycle Perspective
What dietary choices are truly the most sustainable when we consider that what we eat affects not just our health but also the environment and the well-being of others? This online course will provide you with an overview of our world’s food system and its many impacts from the individual to the global scale.
Meets Global Perspectives Liberal Education requirement | Online and open to all locations

CEGE 1501: Environmental Issues and Solutions
Open to students from all colleges. Importance of science in understanding/solving various environmental problems. Case studies. Laboratory exercises. This course meets the environment theme and the physical sciences liberal education requirement.

CEGE 5524: A Circularity Revolution: Working to Close the Loop on Global Issues
This course is designed to develop and critique sustainable solutions for water, energy and materials use, re-use and upcycling from technological, policy and cultural viewpoints. Class designed to be taken prior to the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship: Circularity Impact Program.

CPSY 1301: Nature-Based Learning in Early Childhood
In this course, students will develop an understanding of the connection between early childhood, development and nature-based learning and play.

CSCI 5715: From GPS, Google Maps and Uber to Spatial Data Science
This course introduces the fundamental ideas underlying the geo-spatial services (e.g. Uber, Google Maps and Doordash), systems (e.g., GPS, Spatial Database Management System) and sciences (e.g., Spatial Data Science).

ENGL 3501: Public Discourse: Coming to Terms with the Environment
This course explores significant environmental issues (such as biodiversity loss, climate change and pollution) through the analysis of texts from diverse literary genres (such as fiction, memoir and nonfiction journalism). It focuses as much on issues of language and meaning as it does on the subjects these texts concern. Students examine the formal dimensions of these texts, as well as their social and historical contexts. In addition, students are introduced to the underlying scientific principles, the limitations of technologies and the public policy aspects of each of these issues, in order to judge what constitutes an appropriate response to them.
Meets Literature Core + Environmental Liberal Education requirement

ESCI 1012: Natural Disasters
This course examines the geological processes that give rise to natural hazards, including climate change and the emerging technologies that allow societies to mitigate their effects.
Meets Technology and Society Liberal Education requirement

ESCI 4702: General Hydrogeology
Theory of groundwater geology, hydrologic cycle, watershed hydrology, Darcy’s law, governing equations of groundwater motion, flow net analysis, analog models and groundwater resource evaluation/development. Applied analysis of steady and transient equations of groundwater motion and chemical transport. Chemistry of natural waters.

ESPM 3012: Tribal Natural Resource Management
This course is designed to develop and refine your understanding of tribal and Indigenous natural resource management, tribal and Indigenous perspectives and responsibilities natural resource managers have for tribal and Indigenous communities.

ESPM 3601: Sustainable Housing – Community, Environment and Technology
This course will focus on how sustainable housing practices build community, how community growth has impacted the environment and how natural events impact our communities and what science and technology is required to build high performance houses.

ESPM 3603: Environmental Life Cycle Analysis
This course will study concepts/issues relating to inventory, subsequent analysis of production systems. Production system from a holistic point of view, using a term commonly used in industrial ecology: “metabolic system.”

ESPM 5071: Ecological Restoration
In this course, students will learn about the ecological and social factors that affect ecosystem recovery and how people intervene to reverse ecosystem degradation.

FW 4102: Principles of Conservation Biology
Hands Principles of Conservation Biology meets the Liberal Education Environmental Core Theme. The course provides an introduction to the major themes and concepts of this diverse, dynamic and interdisciplinary field. We will focus on the biological underpinnings of the field – including origins and variation of biodiversity, the value of biodiversity, how human activities threaten the world’s biological systems and potential solutions to conservation problems. Issues faced by conservation biologists pose biological, legal economic and ethical challenges and this course addresses all of these areas.
Prerequisite: An introductory biology course.

GCC 3016: Science and Society: Working Together to Avoid the Antibiotic Resistance Apocalypse
This course provides an overview of how antibiotic use leads to antibiotic resistance, including in depth discussions of antibiotic resistant microorganisms and the impact of globalization on this exploding problem. Prepare to grapple with important societal challenges from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

GEOG 3423: Urban Climatology
In this course, students will learn how and why cities can affect their immediate – and possibly regional and global – environments. There are several basic changes that are found in nearly all built-up environments and these will be the focus of this class. Students will also get experience with urban climate research via a project (or projects) developed together as a class by drawing on public documents and research papers, collecting and analyzing data and collaborating with colleagues (and the instructor) to bring the project to completion.

GLOS 3305: Life for Sale – Global Debates on Environment, Science and Society
This class uses a social justice lens to explore the interrelations of scientific discoveries, unequal global economies and commodification and the impact on the health, well being and valuation of particular populations.

HIST 1364: Introduction to Global Environmental History
This introductory course focuses on human-environment interaction and the role of environmental factors in the shaping of world history. Beginning with the idea of environmental history and its broad themes, including climate, volcanic eruptions, landscape, plants, crops, animals, insects, disease, pestilence, energy and technology, the course will enable students not only to understand the complex relationship between human societies and non-human species but also the changing nature and structure of this relationship throughout history.
Meets Environment + Historical Perspectives Liberal Education requirement

HORT 5131: Student Organic Farm Planning, Growing and Marketing
Organic fruit and vegetable production has been one of the fastest growing segments of the US economy for almost two decades, stimulating an overwhelming number of biological and ecological innovations to produce food using organic approaches. This course aims to increase student’s knowledge of ecological concepts as applied to managing organic systems, with an emphasis on soil nutrient cycles and plant-soil-microbe interactions that serve as the cornerstone of organic systems.

HSCI 1212: Life on Earth: Origins, Evolution and Ecology
How have people explained where life came from and how it has developed over time? We examine controversies over life’s origins, the Holocene extinction, human population growth, the Dust Bowl and soil conservation, DDT and falcon repatriation and disease and responses to pandemics.
Meets Environment + Historical Perspectives Liberal Education requirements

HSCI 3244: Nature’s History: Science, Humans and the Environment
Students will examine environmental ideas, sustainability, conservation history; critique of the human impact on nature; empire and power in the Anthropocene; how the science of ecology has developed; and modern environmental movements around the globe. Case studies include repatriation of endangered species; ecology and evolutionary theory; ecology of disease; and climate change.

PA 4790: Localizing Sustainability: City and State Projects
Investigate climate change policy, focusing on the actions communities must take. Collaborate with a Minnesota city actively engaged in the MN GreenStep Cities program to gain a broader holistic world view and connect it to your field of study.

PA 5920: Skills Workshop
Take courses on topics on public policy or planning skills. Topics specified in Class Schedule. Select from courses with rotating topics. Topics have included: Dialogue as a Transformative Practice; Stakeholder Analysis Tools; Visual Strategy Mapping; and more!

SSM 2003: Systems Thinking – Development and Applications in Sustainability
This course will provide an introduction to basic systems thinking fundamentals: defining a systems perspective about any situation or problem, solving problems with that perspective, describing and modeling problems and designing and improving upon system solutions.

SSM 3612: Systems Approach to Building Science and Construction
Study the dynamic and interrelated issues of energy, moisture control and indoor air quality in residential buildings. Examine design, construction and operational aspects for an energy efficient, durable structured and healthy living environment.

VMED 5180: Ecology of Infectious Disease
How host, agent, environmental interactions influence transmission of infectious agents. Environmental dissemination, eradication/control, evolution of virulence. Use of analytical/molecular tools.

Please visit the schedule builder for more information about specific course offerings and to add a course to your schedule.

EEB 3407: Ecology at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve – May Session 3 Week Course 
Improve your ability to understand, apply, analyze, synthesize and evaluate: biological population dynamics, community diversity and ecosystem processes; theoretical, experimental and observational approaches used in ecology; and many ways in which people influence and depend on biodiversity and ecosystems. Learn more about the Cedar Creek course.

EEB 3811W: Introduction to Animal Behavior at Itasca Biological Station and Labs – Summer Session 13 week course 
This course introduces the principle concept of animal behavior through hypothesis-driven inquiry of animal systems in the field. Learn More about Intro to Animal Behavior and Scholarships.

EEB 4839: Field Studies in Mammalogy at Itasca Biological Station and Labs – Summer Session 13 week course 
Techniques for studying small mammals. Lectures/field projects emphasize identification, distributions, community interactions, ecophysiology and population ecology. Learn More about Mammalogy and Scholarships.

FDSY 4101: Holistic Approaches to Improving Food Systems Sustainability 
Students in this capstone course address food system sustainability challenges both in the classroom and via service-learning, where they spend 45 hours engaged with a food justice-based community organization. Requires off-campus work at the community partner site.

PMB 5802: Field Microbiology at Itasca Biological Station and Labs – May Term 3 Week Course 
Hands-on microbiology, including real-time high-throughput DNA sequencing in the north woods on a lake. Small class sizes – experiential learning – memories, not memorization. Learn More about Field Microbiology and Scholarships.

PMB 5812: Field Mycology at Itasca Biological Station and Labs – May Term 3 week course 
Hands-on mycology in the north woods on a lake. Small class sizes – experiential learning – memories, not memorization. Learn More about Field Mycology and Scholarships.

The following experiences are offered in partnership with the Learning Abroad Center and must be applied for.

Germany: Leading the Renewables Revolution
Meet leaders from Germany and Minnesota who are involved in solving the social, technical and political challenges of transforming industrial economies in the era of climate change.

Health in Ecuador: History, Environment and Culture
In this course, learn about the intersection between animal health, human health and the environment by studying the history and ecosystems of Ecuador. After learning about these topics, students will then travel to Quito and surrounding areas in Ecuador during Spring Break.
Meets Global Perspectives Liberal Education requirement

Sustainability in Sicily – Fall or Spring Semester
Explore the environmental and sustainability issues that shape Sicily, Italy and the surrounding Mediterranean region. Engage with local communities through field visits and excursions connected to your coursework