Environmental Sustainability in the Curriculum
As part of the college's liberal education curriculum, students are required to explore ecological, policy, social, cultural, and/or historical dimensions of human relationships to the environment through an environmental sustainability learning requirement and the Environmental Studies Program.
Students have many options to meet this requirement. Environmental courses have been developed across the disciplines, including sociology, media studies, economics, computer modeling, and mathematics. Specific cross-cultural, environmentally themed courses include Consumer Culture and the Environment, Quantitative Reasoning and the Environment, Environmental Ethics, and Statistical Data Analysis With Environmental Issues in View.
The Environmental Studies Program offers an interdisciplinary environmental studies major with two concentrations—environmental science or environment and society. Because Goucher offers this environmental studies major, as well as a minor, there are various courses in the discipline that provide students with basic tools for understanding global and local environmental issues.
Goucher also has a graduate program in environmental sustainability and management. This flexible M.A. degree equips graduate students with the tools of science, policy, system dynamics, and environmental management in order to tackle the ever-growing environmental concerns facing humanity.
A number of study abroad programs have focused on environmental themes; past environmentally focused courses have included Tropical Marine Biology in Honduras; Sacred Space, the Forbidden Forest, and Nature's Place in Contemporary Japan; Brazilian Ecosystems; and Global-Local Challenges to Sustainability: The Costa Rican Experience.