Alumni Perspective
“The interdisciplinary approach totally informs what I do. I know the experience at Lawrence was definitely influential in all this. I was tired of seeing science on one side, arts on another side. That tends to happen in our curriculum in Ghana. Seeing the liberal arts at work at Lawrence, I knew it could be better here.”
Natalie Fordwor ’12, Founder at WonderspacED
Environmental Studies
Kumasi, Ghana
Deanna Donohoue | Open Office
Lawrence students visit the office of Deanna Donohoue, Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Studies.
Lake Michigan Bluff Erosion
Spend your summer studying under professors like Jeff Clark, learning new technical skills and deepening your knowledge of the natural world, through research on Lake Michigan.
Outstanding in the field
You have a wide array of opportunities to get out into the field, whatever the field means to you. You could be gathering samples from the Fox River, interning at an environmental organization in Washington, or taking part in community organizing in Chicago.
SLUG Bugs
The Sustainable Lawrence University Garden is a collaborative project led by environmental studies students.
Go global
Study abroad opportunities in places like Costa Rica let you tackle global environmental issues with global experiences.
The Chandler Senior Experience
The Senior Seminar is the culmination of the environmental studies major and serves as the program's Senior Experience. Through discussions of primary literature and guest lectures, you’ll engage with cutting-edge scholarship in the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. You will also complete an individual project, which consists of developing models of environmentally relevant phenomena. In the course of this modeling work, you must find and acquire relevant data, determine functional relations between model elements, perform sensitivity analyses, and justify your choices and assumptions. Finally, you will present your results and conclusions orally and in a written document.
Recent Senior Experiences include:
- PurpleAir Sensors: New Air Quality Instrumentation to Enhance Community Engagement & Data Collection Near Industrial Activity
- Assessing Brook Trout Viability Relative to Rising Stream Temperatures in Northern Wisconsin
- Greening Through QR Codes: The Influence of Technology on Environmental Education
- Be Here Now: A Poetic Exploration of Dwelling in the Wisconsin Region
Environmental Studies Outcomes
A degree in environmental studies helps you illuminate the way forward in a changing world.
Are you a problem solver in search of a well-rounded science toolkit? Are you looking to explore environmental questions through the lens of the natural sciences? You may also be interested in the Environmental Science major.