Minor in Environmental Policy, Institutions, and Behavior (18 credits)

Course Schedule

• Fall 2025 Course Schedule
• Spring 2025 Course Schedule
• Fall 2024 Course Schedule

About the EPIB Minor

The Environmental Policy, Institutions and Behavior (EPIB) minor examines the human dimensions of environmental problems and solutions. It addresses such issues as how human actions affect the environment; how societies adapt to changes in natural resource availability; and how individuals, nations, and international agencies respond to environmental hazards.

Courses in the program deal with local, regional, and national differences in the use of resources; social and environmental aspects of health and illness; strategies for environmental management; ethical, moral, and legal dimensions of environmental and resource issues; and roles of industry, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations in environmental affairs.

Learning Goals

Students graduating with an EPIB minor will understand and analyze the varied perspectives offered by the social and natural sciences regarding the causes and consequences of social, ecological, and environmental change. This includes interactions among natural resources, climate, population, energy use and technology, health, forces of globalization, social institutions, and cultural values.

Students will acquire the skills to use appropriate conceptual and methodological tools to structure inquiries about human-environment interactions and their solutions.

And finally, students will undertake their work guided by ethical considerations. They will identify their own values with respect to environmental, health, and food issues; and they will evaluate and address the ethical dimensions and implications of related problems, assessments, plans, and communication, including their differentiated social impacts.

For more details see the EPIB Learning Goals document (109k PDF). Also see the Courses by Learning Goal (153k PDF).

All students must take the following course:
11:374:101 ~ Introduction to Human Ecology

Students must take 5 additional courses from the list of elective courses below, of which 3 must be at the 300 or 400 level.
11:374:103 ~ Introduction to Science Communication
11:374:110 ~ Theories and Reasoning in Human Ecology
11:374:115 ~ Water and Society
11:374:141 ~ Health and Society
11:374:175 ~ Energy and Society
11:374:201 ~ Research Methods
11:374:210 ~ Nature Journaling: Discovering Biodiversity and Nature in Everyday Life
11:374:220 ~ Environmental Solutions
11:374:225 ~ Environment in Society and Mass Media
11:374:250 ~ Environmental Justice
11:374:279 ~ Politics Environmental Issues
11:374:280 ~ Careers in Environmental Policy, Institutions and Behavior
11:374:289 ~ Sustainable Food: Politics, Policy, and Ethics
11:374:299 ~ Introduction to Sustainability
11:374:302 ~ Data Analysis for Human Ecology
11:374:305 ~ Globalization, Development, and Environment
11:374:310 ~ Storytelling About Science
11:374:312 ~ Environmental History
11:374:313 ~ US Environmental Policy
11:374:314 ~ Natural Resources Policy
11:374:315 ~ International Environmental Policy
11:374:322 ~ Environmental Behavior
11:374:416 ~ Environmental Education
11:374:430 ~ Risk, Health, and Safety
11:374:435 ~ Advanced Communication in the Science
11:374:437 ~ Culture and Health
11:374:438 ~ Topics: Food Safety for the Public
11:374:460 ~ Environmental Law and Policy
11:374:462 ~ International Environmental Law
11:374:481 ~ Internship in Watershed Management
11:374:482 ~ Internships in Climate Action
11:374:483 ~ Internships in Science Communication
11:374:490 ~ Research and Practicum in Human Ecology
11:374:492 ~ Environmental Studies Internship