2025-2026 Academic Catalog

Jun 27, 2025

2025-2026 Academic Catalog

Climate, Environment, and Society Major

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Climate, Environment, and Society Overview

Climate, Environment, and Society (CES) involves the study of Earth’s natural and human systems amidst profound global environmental change. Students examine how earth’s climate and environment are being transformed by socioeconomic and cultural processes, and how socioeconomic and cultural conditions are, in turn, being transformed by the changing climate and environment. In addition to building foundational understanding, the CES curriculum involves a search for more equitable, sustainable and just pathways for the future. The curriculum is problem-focused and solution-oriented, moving students across the various disciplinary perspectives required to understand and address climate change and other sustainability challenges.

Students are oriented to the CES theme through exposure to a range of physical, social, economic, and cultural dimensions of environmental challenges. The CES curriculum examines these dimensions holistically to understand their interconnections and intersections. It features three foundational elements, including (1) biophysical sciences, (2) social science, technology and policy, and (3) worldviews and ethics.

Biophysical Sciences cover the biological, physical, and earth system sciences that are foundational to understandings of the physical climate system and its response to natural and human forcings, the biological and physical consequences of land change, agriculture, and natural resource extraction, as well as associated impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Students chose among courses that tend to specialize in one of these thematic areas but that provide points of connection to the others. Students and advisors should select a complement of introductory and elective courses that deliver knowledge of the following core science themes:

Environmental processes that regulate and impact climate
Impacts and dynamics of land change, food systems, and natural resources management
Physical, chemical, and biological processes shaping the landscape of the earth
Coupled natural-human systems
Earth systems, conservation, and ecosystem services

Social Science, Technology, and Policy involves an orientation to globalization, urban studies, development, socioeconomic systems, resource and environmental politics and governance, and socio-technical and economic dimensions of sustainability. Students and advisors should select a complement of introductory and elective courses that deliver on knowledge of the following core themes:

Human health in relation to environment, especially water, air, and soil quality
Policy, governance and social change processes in relation to environmental and climate issues
Historical causes, processes and contexts of human-induced climate change
Cultural and geographical diversity of human relationships with the environment
Globalization and urbanization processes, including those that produce uneven development locally and globally
Economic dimensions of development, inequality, and environment
Socio-technological dimensions of the provision of energy, food, and materials, including solutions for more sustainable provision of energy and materials

Worldviews and Ethics covers topics of governance, equity & justice, environmental worldviews, values, politics and power, and environmental and human health ethics. Students and advisors should select a complement of introductory and elective courses that deliver knowledge of the following core themes:

Intersectionality of environmental hazards and impacts with class, race, gender
Resource and health governance, equity and justice
Ethics of the environment and human health

Climate, Environment and Society encompasses urgent areas of concern for society at large central to the challenges of climate change, environmental transformation, human‐environment relationships, and associated socio-economic and development trends. The Climate, Environment and Society domain is among Clark’s signature strengths. We have a powerful legacy of leadership in geography, development, urban studies, resource governance, economics, earth system science, and environmental humanities, drawing on over a century of pioneering work that is sustained today. This curricular program draws these powerful elements together in productive synergy to address this shared interdisciplinary space, and centers experiential learning and engaged practice throughout the program.

Major Requirements

The major in CES requires 12 course units. Each course is allowed to satisfy only one of the requirements below. It is not possible for a course to fulfill more than one requirement for the major simultaneously. If a course might meet more than one of the criteria below, the advisor will determine how to consider the course.

The major has six components and a total of 12 course units distributed as follows:

1 CES 101: Introduction to Climate, Environment and Society
3 Introductory Core Courses
1 Quantitative Literacy Course
2 Skills Courses
4 Elective Courses, including PoP options
1 Capstone (Course or Other Qualified Experience

CES 101: Introduction to Climate, Environment, and Society

Orientation to CES core areas of biophysical science, social science, technology and policy, and worldviews and ethics as complementary approaches to exploring a topic in CES such as climate change or sustainability.

Three Introductory Core Courses - 000 to 100 level

Core courses provide foundational knowledge of earth’s biophysical and societal systems. Students take one course in each of the following three core areas.

Introductory Core Biophysical Courses (select one)

Introductory Core Social Science, Technology and Policy Courses (select one)

Introductory Core Worldviews and Ethics Courses (select one)

CES 111: Quantitative Literacy

Quantitative literacy courses help students build essential capacities with numeracy, producing and interpreting data, tables and graphs, performing basic scientific computation, using scientific notation, understanding of statistical distributions and uncertainties and regression, interpreting basic transformations such as with a logarithmic scale, and communicating quantitative findings. This course satisfies the Formal Analysis.

Four Elective Courses - at least 3 taken at 200- or 300- level

Majors select four upper-level elective courses, at least three taken within one area and one from a different area. Core areas remain the same: Biophysical Science; Social Science, Technology and Policy; and, Worldviews and Ethics. At least three courses should be taken at the 200- or 300-level, and at least three should be taken in one core area to provide depth of knowledge and expertise within a certain domain.

Elective Biophysical Science Courses

Elective Social Science, Technology, and Policy Courses

Elective Worldviews and Ethics Courses

Two Skills Courses

Skills courses develop skills for generating knowledge, interpreting patterns and systems, and communicating understandings of climate, environment and society. CES majors choose a set of technical and analytical skills that are right for them, selecting from a wide range of possible areas, including: Statistics; Computer Modeling; Data Visualization GIS; Geospatial Data Analytics; Project Management, Monitoring and Evaluation; Systems Modeling and Analysis; Policy Analysis; Qualitative Methods; Communications in Select Media and Forms
Narrative Inquiry; Community-Engaged Practice

Skills Courses (2, any level)

Capstone

One Capstone credit is required for the CES major as an additional credit. CES majors may choose among various ways to earn the capstone credit. The student’s capstone advisor will help determine how any credit satisfies the capstone criteria. The advisor will make this determination based on the purpose of the capstone, which is for the student to integrate content and skills in the field, as applied to a particular topic. Students and advisors should select a capstone experience that delivers on the following learning outcome goal regarding practice and applications “to demonstrate ability to engage diverse, non-academic stakeholders and practitioners in communication and decision-making” in one or more of the following domains: Governance, Equity, and Justice; Sustainable and Climate-Resilient Development; Socio-economic Systems and Sustainability Transitions; Urban Systems and Livelihoods; Earth Systems, Biodiversity, Conservation, and Ecosystem Services.

Capstone Types

1. A 200-level course from the list below.

2. A 200-level GEOG/ID/EN/ECON course that qualifies according to the course’s professor.

For this 200-level course option, the student must obtain written permission from the professor of the 200-level course before the course begins to confirm that the course will satisfy the capstone requirement. The professor of the 200-level course might require activities from the student that go beyond the activities required by other students in the 200-level course. If the course’s professor informs the student’s departmental academic advisor that the student satisfied the Capstone requirement, then the student’s departmental academic advisor performs a course substitution to allow the course to count as the Captsone.

3. A 300-level GEOG/ID/EN/ECON course

The 300-level course’s professor must give electronic permission for an undergraduate to register for a course at the 300-level.

4. Honors Thesis (GEOG/ID/EN/ECON 297)

The second of the two-credit Honors thesis qualifies as a capstone course.

5. Internship (GEOG/ID/EN/ECON 298)

An internship credit (1.0 credit units) counts as a capstone course. The student must obtain a faculty sponsor and apply to the Career Connections Center for academic crfedit the semester before the internship commences.

6. Research experience

A research experience counts as a Capstone via two possible avenues:

A research project conducted under the supervision of a faculty member. Students typically enroll in a Directed Study (GEOG/ID/EN/ECON 299).
Work done in collaboration with a research group or team, for instance, in which students may contribute as a research assistant. Examples of such projects and research teams include but are not limited to: Human Environment Regional Observatory (HERO) program; Forest Ecology Research Lab (FERL); Biogeosciences Research Group (BRG); Extractive Industries Research Group; and the Polar Science Research Laboratory. Most such research opportunities have a separate, competitive application process. Students accepted into these research groups will be advised on how to register for academic and capstone credit.

Climate, Environment, and Society Faculty

Core (Advising) Faculty

Cynthia Caron, Ph.D.
Tim Downs, Ph.D.
Karen Frey, Ph.D.
Sang Hoo Bae, Ph.D.
Eman Lasheen, Ph.D.
James McCarthy, Ph.D.
Rinku Roy Chowdhury, Ph.D.
Morgan Ruelle, Ph.D.
Magda Tsaneva, Ph.D.
Christopher Williams, Ph.D.
Junfu Zhang, Ph.D.

Affiliated Faculty

Nathan Ahlgren, Ph.D.
Atefeh Yazdanparast Ardestani, Ph.D.
Dana Bauer, Ph.D.
Jude Fernando, Ph.D.
Ellen Foley, Ph.D.
Abby Frazier, Ph.D.
Christina Gerhardt, Ph.D.
Dominik Kulakowski, Ph.D.
Steve Levin, Ph.D.
Matt Malsky, Ph.D.
Deborah Martin, Ph.D.
Kaitlyn Mathis, Ph.D.
James Murphy, Ph.D.
Gustavo Oliveira, Ph.D.
Max Ritts, Ph.D.
Johanna Vohlhardt, Ph.D.