Home/Academics/Environmental Studies and Sustainability
Environmental Studies and Sustainability
Join the global effort to protect our environment and natural resources.
We have a hive of bees at our educational garden and farm. Professors distribute honey to help students combat local allergies because eating local honey can help acclimate to the pollen around you.
Climate change. Disappearing rain forests. Polluted and toxic oceans. For lovers of the natural world, there’s never been more cause for worry. But there’s also some good news — with a degree in environmental studies and sustainability, you can join the fight to protect our planet on multiple fronts.
Outdoor adventures await you
Unlock your inner explorer through class field trips and short travel courses. Measure animal diversity during the fall snake migration in southern Illinois. Harvest native plant seeds at the Nature Conservancy’s Nachusa prairie while buffalo roam nearby. Hike the Grand Canyon or snorkel coral reefs.
Discover your opportunities
Hone your research skills within minutes of campus and discover the links between your life and local ecosystems. Test control methods for invasive plants at LeSuer Nature Preserve. Explore the effects of pharmaceutical contaminants on behavior of fish and frogs. Measure population density of turtles at Hamilton Pond. Monitor native plant and animal populations at Spring Grove Prairie.
Get hands-in-the-dirt experience
Get dirty with hands-on restoration efforts at LeSuer Nature Preserve. Plant trees, burn a prairie, stabilize a stream bank. Or explore agricultural ecology at the educational garden and farm while pursuing a minor in global food security. Propose solutions to climate change and implement them on campus and in the community.
Antoinette Meciej '17 works as a communication, marketing and public program specialist at Kendall County (Illinois) Forest Preserve District.
Theatre professor Vanessa Campagna previews Little Women, which will be performed April 15-18 at the Wells Theater; biology professor Ken Cramer and environmental studies and sustainability major Grace Simpson ’23 of Metamora, Illinois, discuss efforts to help make the campus carbon-neutral in the next decade (10:27).
The LeSuer Nature Preserve provides opportunities for field classes and research.
Rolling hills split by a small stream offer upland grassland, forest, riparian, and aquatic habitats for study. Restoration of the entire area to pre-settlement conditions, hello native prairie grass, provides abundant opportunities for student research. Water quality monitoring and aquatic ecology studies are also possible in the stream.
We know the Peace Corps is seriously competitive. We’ve got you.
The Peace Corps Prep program prepares students for international development, fieldwork and Peace Corps service. Our students focus on training and experience in a specific work sector, foreign language skills, professional and leadership development and intercultural literacy.
Prepare for a rich personal and professional life and positions of leadership, service, and citizenship in a global context from former Peace Corps faculty.
