Senior Seminar Info and Applications
ENVS Senior Seminar Application Information
Spring 2025 Senior Seminar Application Timeline
- January 21: Applications open
- February 4: Early application deadline (11:59PM PST)
- February 5: Rolling applications begin -- there is no guarantee that applications will be considered if submitted during rolling application period; once the course fills up, no more apps will be reviewed
- February 18: Early application decisions announced to students
- February 26: Undergraduate student enrollment begins
ENVS Senior Seminar Course Descriptions
Spring 2025 (Two senior seminar sections will be offered)
1. ENVS 196 - Climate Justice - Jeffrey Bury
Description: As the pace and scale of global climate change rapidly escalates over the next few decades, it will pose profound environmental, social, economic, and political challenges for humanity. This senior seminar will focus on what climate justice is and why it is a critical component for current efforts to confront the climate crisis. The course will be organized around a series of student-led research analyses that examine climate justice and how it might be achieved in relationship to our most recent knowledge about the complex nature of this unfolding crisis. The specific themes to be addressed will be determined by the participants in the course, but will likely include global carbon budgets and taxes, vulnerability and adaptation, migration and climate refugees, geoengineering, and alternative energy. The goal of these evaluations will be to assess why climate justice is important and how it might current and proposed efforts to address climate change and the social, political, and economic constraints affecting how it might be achieved.
The class will be organized around two different sections. The first section will consist of seminars in which students will read and discuss the idea of climate justice and the most recent and significant papers and reports focusing on climate change. During this section, participants will select specific thematic focus areas for further research. The second section of the course will consist of student presentations and larger class discussions evaluating each of these focus areas and a specific set of proposals that seek to confront the climate crisis.
Each student will be expected to prepare a written research paper that includes a review of the salient literature related to their focus area that addresses the question of how, in what ways, and if their selected case-study proposal might confront the climate crisis.
Prerequisites: ENVS major with senior standing and has completed ENVS 100/L and 3 additional upper-division courses. Preference will be given to those who have demonstrated past academic excellence and have background course work or professional experience related to the course focus.
To apply: Fill out this google form.
2. ENVS 196G - Foundations of Applied Research in Geographic Information Systems - Bo Yang
To apply: Fill out this google form.
