Environmental Science
Environmental Science is the newest major in UC's Bachelor of Science and is an interdisciplinary programme, taught by staff from Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Forestry Science, Gateway Antarctica, School of Earth and Environment, School of Mathematics and Statistics and Physics and Astronomy.
Our academic staff are complemented by guest lecturers from industry, Crown Research Institutes and local government.
Environmental Science must be taken as a double major with another Bachelor of Science major. The topic looks at how the earth works, how people are affecting the environment and how to solve environmental issues. This new specialisation meets demand from both students and employers for a more specialised course of study in a field of growing national and international relevance.
Graduates will have a broad interdisciplinary background as students of both Environmental Science and their other chosen major. They will be able to identify, monitor and solve a variety of problems associated with the environment. They find employment in a range of careers including making businesses more sustainable, helping multinationals reduce the impact of major projects and as advisors in government agencies.
Why choose Environmental Science?
Human impact on the environment is a field of increasing concern. We aim to produce graduates with critical insight who will apply their innovative, problem-solving skills to create a better world.
The major offers opportunities to:
- Develop critical analytical skills
- Become an environmental decision maker
- Shape our global future
- Solve environmental challenges
- Make a difference
- Be part of solutions
- Environmental monitoring
- Human exposure to contaminants
- Environmental fate and toxicity of contaminants
- Water quality
- Air quality
- Contaminated land
- Climate change
- Antarctic Science
- Biosecurity
- Stable isotope geochemistry
- Freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecology
- Coastal science
- Monitoring the Impact of Scott Base in Antarctica: A Recent Evaluation of Wastewater, Water and Soil Quality at Pram Point, Ross Island.
- Mechanisms of trace metal and diclofenac toxicity in inanga (Galaxias maculatus).
- Intertidal foraminifera of the Avon-Heathcote Estuary; response to coseismic deformation and potential to record local historic events.
- Mauka makai’ ‘Ki uta ki tai’: The ecological and sociocultural values of estuarine shellfish fisheries in Hawai`i and Aotearoa New Zealand.
- Impacts of antimicrobial compounds in urban waterways receiving sewer overflows.
- Characteristics of the Ross and Southern McMurdo ice shelves as revealed from ground-based radar surveys.
- Metal contamination in streams in three New Zealand cities, the effects on benthic communities and the accumulation in a New Zealand mayfly.
- Distribution, trapping efficiencies and feeding trials for Paranephrops zealandicus in central Canterbury.
- Enhancing the performance of wastewater microalgae through chemical and physical modifications in high rate algal ponds.
- Accumulation of trace elements in aquatic food chains due to sea-fill activities.
- A comparison of the stable isotopic ecology of eastern, western, and pre-human forest ecosystems in the South Island of New Zealand.
- An investigation into local air quality throughout two residential communities bisected by major highways in South Auckland, New Zealand.
- Pocket beach wave processes and current systems investigated via field and numerical modelling studies: a case study of Okains Bay.
- Evaluation of the customary fisheries management of shellfish in the Canterbury Region.
- Population biology and restoration of intertidal cockle beds.
- Visit our research repository to find out more.
Postgraduate pathways in Environmental Science
For all enquiries about the Environmental Science major:
