Environmental Studies (Q99)

Environmental issues are posing multiple challenges to people and ecosystems across the planet. These challenges can only be addressed effectively if the complex connections between the societal (social, political, economic, cultural, and ethical) and the biophysical (geological, physical, ecological) dimensions of environmental issues are taken seriously. This innovative, interdisciplinary degree combines the social and natural sciences to help you understand these different dimensions and why their interrelationships matter as we respond to intensifying environmental change.

Key features of the course

• Equips you to actively engage with some of the most significant issues in the world today

• Combines a thorough and interdisciplinary grounding in environmental change with a distinctive social sciences approach to environmental issues

• Enhances your employability with a valued combination of social and natural science knowledge and skills

Course Modules

This environmental studies degree has three stages, each comprising 120 credits.

To start Stage 1, you’ll be introduced to the interdisciplinary study of environmental issues, before covering global challenges such as legacies of colonialism and enslavement, digital technology, how social science helps us understand those challenges and how you can respond to them as an active citizen. As you do so, you’ll explore some of the environmental issues affecting the Arctic, the Nile, the Amazon, China, the oceans, and key world cities, as well as themes such as inequality, rights and justice.

At Stage 2, you’ll use the insights of the natural and the social sciences to explore why environmental issues such as biodiversity loss, water security, climate change, and food production pose such significant challenges and understand how matters of environment and society are so thoroughly entangled.

At Stage 3, you’ll explore the many debates and dilemmas involved in developing environmental policy as well as gaining the interdisciplinary tools for understanding, researching, and communicating contemporary environmental issues.