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Environmental Science employs an interdisciplinary approach, teaching students how to meet the challenges of creating a safe and healthy environment and how to recognize and control the effects of pollution and environmental stress on ecosystems. Faculty and students seek practical solutions to complex environmental problems by crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries. Students learn how to integrate and apply knowledge from the appropriate areas of basic science, economics, and policy to address problems caused by ecosystem degradation and from physical alteration of the environment and chemical contaminants from industrial activities, agriculture, food production, and inadequate resource management.

The Environmental Science Program is the only academic unit in the UMass system providing a B.S. degree in Environmental Science. Affiliated faculty teach a series of courses with the ENVIRSCI designation as well as disciplinary courses in their departments that apply to the Environmental Science major. The curriculum includes innovative course offerings that extend the traditional classroom experience to outreach activities including environmental applications and problem solving in off-campus community settings. Specialty courses expose students to a blend of academic and practical knowledge that includes environmental site assessment (ASTM-EPA procedures), hazardous waste operations and emergency response (OSHA Certification), environmental applications of GIS technologies, and novel approaches to environmental remediation and waste disposal.