CONCENTRATION in the BA ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES MAJOR

What You’ll Study

Students use the land on our campus for teaching and learning through long-term partnerships with both schools and non-profits in the community. You’ll refine your skills from work crews to develop programs that address best practices and guidelines developed by the North American Association of Environmental Education. Finally, you’ll gain additional real-world skills through a required internship and a capstone project.

Courses

Building on the core of the Environmental Studies major, the Environmental Education concentration focuses on teaching you how to inspire others to go beyond just parsing facts about the environment. Course topics include educational psychology and program planning, which will show you how to create lesson plans and lead a class — valuable skills you’ll bring with you into the field. You’ll also take physical education courses, such as kayaking, canoeing, or rock climbing.

Internship

Put those new skills to work in your internship. Most internships partner with local community organizations, where you’ll provide environmental education programs for a specific audience. You’ll also get experience that’ll serve you in just about any job, like project management, budgeting, teaching, and professional communication.

Example Internships

  • Working with at-risk high school students to teach gardening and cooking classes for first-graders
  • Designing outdoor learning labs for middle school students
  • Facilitating workshops on wellness for low-income senior citizens
  • Designing climate justice tours for faith communities

Where Will You Go from Here?

Warren Wilson environmental education graduates go on to careers in educating youth or adults on environmental issues, or graduate school programs in subjects like education, environmental journalism, or community-based conservation.

Jobs of recent graduates include:

  • Public school farm manager and educator
  • Master gardener coordinator
  • Wildlife refuge specialist for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services
  • Middle school science teacher
  • Nutrition educator for Cooperative Extension
  • Community organizer for conservation nonprofits

Explore Classes in This Program

ENS 3190

Community-based Environmental Education

Get teaching experience implementing education programs for local community organizations. You’ll also take training workshops with natural resource professionals. Counts toward North Carolina certification in Environmental Education.

EDU 3050

Educational Psychology

Understanding how people tick can be a great asset when you’re dealing with groups. This class teaches how development, cognition, and motivation can affect learning, and how to manage a classroom with those things in mind.

PED 1090

Canoeing

An option to fulfill this concentration’s physical education requirement, this class can teach you the basic skills for paddling a 2-person canoe on class II whitewater.

Meet Our Faculty

The best part of the job is watching students graduate with a strong portfolio of experiences and find meaningful work connecting people to places.

Mallory McDuff, Ph.D.
Mallory McDuff, Ph.D.
Connecting People to Places

See For Yourself

Learn about “connecting people to places,” a project conducted by Environmental Education students involving three different schools in the Swannanoa Valley. The video highlights the integration of academics, work, and community engagement for students studying environmental education.