Climate Change: Science and Practice Undergraduate Minor
Climate Change: Science and Practice Undergraduate Minor
The Climate Change: Science and Practice minor offers students the opportunity to study climate change through a multidisciplinary foundation of applied, health, natural, and urban science. The minor offers students the opportunity to understand how professional practices from public health to engineering and from sustainable design to environmental management converge to support climate action that reduces greenhouse gases and climate-related natural hazards risk, preserves biodiversity, advances public health, and supports adaptations to climate impacts. This interdisciplinary climate change minor is designed to be complementary to students’ existing majors insofar as nearly all future professional practices—regardless of vocation—will be shaped by the challenges and opportunities of climate change.
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Curriculum Requirements
The foundations curricular section of the minor requires that students take core courses in at least two of the three home schools that administer this minor in order to ensure the attainment of a qualifiable literacy in the science of climate change. Here, climate literacy is defined by a basic understanding of the causes, impacts and solutions that shape our common understanding of the manifestations of anthropogenic climate change. By taking courses across schools, students gain a diverse perspective on the convergence of science and practice.
The explorations curricular section of the minor reinforces this perspective by allowing students to select from a wide range of courses with varying specializations that open the door to a new range of methodologies and forms of analysis that are unique to the problem-solution nexus in climate change. The goal is to allow students to explore the convergence of common issues that often defy the knowledge and capabilities of a singular academic discipline or professional practice. For instance, the growing exposure of society to flooding requires river science and engineering to support engineering resilience design, urban planners to support the public financing of infrastructure and public health professionals to manage a population’s health risks from the diffusion of toxic contamination and vector-borne diseases.
The practices curricular section of the minor offers students the opportunity to synthetically apply their knowledge in dialogue with students and faculty from across the respective schools in order to simulate the complexities of engaging a variety of stakeholders and conditions in advancing climate action. Students may attain credit in this section by successfully pursuing an approved independent study, undergraduate thesis, senior seminar or capstone course, climate change-themed architecture or landscape architecture studio, field course or other such courses approved by the program.
FAQs
The minor gives students a multidisciplinary foundation spanning applied, health, natural, and urban science, showing how fields from public health to engineering to sustainable design converge on climate action. Because it draws on courses across three different schools, it's designed to complement virtually any major — reflecting the reality that nearly all future professional practices will be shaped by climate change.
To declare your major/minor, please complete and sign the major declaration form.
If your major advisor does not reach out, you may want to contact them to introduce yourself or to set up a meeting.
Contact Us
Daniel Friess, Ph.D.
Cochran Family Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Torbjörn E. Törnqvist, Ph.D.
Vokes Professor of Geology
For additional inquiries related to this minor, please email
climateminor@tulane.edu