Why Environment?

"Learning is experience, everything else is just information."
- Albert Einstein

At the Faculty of Environment you won't just sit in a classroom - you'll "get your hands dirty" during field trips, in labs, and on co-op work terms while growing your ideas:

Experience through the eyes of our students

Matt shares his thoughts on what it is like to be an Environment student. Check out his video above then learn more about hands-on opportunities within the Faculty on our YouTube channel.

Field trips

In our Professional and Scholarly Practice in Geography Field course students travel to either the Bruce Peninsula National Park or the Fathom Five National Marine Park and conduct research on topics of interest to the parks.

After the research is completed, students must write papers regarding their findings which are submitted not only to the school, but to the research departments of the parks for possible future use.

In the past the projects have covered invasive species removal plans, land use reports, and designing trails and their guides.

During the Environment and Business Waste Management course students visit various areas such as:

• Materials recovery centres
• Landfill sites
• Composting operations
• Hazardous waste centres
• Oil re-refining facilities
• Waste incineration facilities

These are just two of many field courses available. The Waterloo Summit Centre for the Environment in Huntsville, Ontario will host many more students in exciting and
interesting courses.

Labs

You'll create a city in the woodworking shop in our Planning Design and the Environment course. Students make land contours that are displayed in the foyer, test a buildings infrastructure using scaled models, or even make their own furniture.

The Ecology lab helps facilitate field work, lab courses and experiments for any Environment student. Newly renovated and expanded in 2011 the space features many helpful tools for students and their research.

Co-op

You can help Botswana's Mokolodi Nature Reserve prepare for extreme drought, like Arija an Environment and Business student. The team of researchers Arija worked with conducted research to determine how many animals the reserve could support should South Africa experience times of extreme drought.

As an Environmental Educator Officer, Arija also helped preserve a giraffe skeleton that will be turned into an educational display.

Discover more opportunities with co-op on our careers page.