The environmental science major gives students the opportunity to experience field-intensive courses and requires that each student complete at least four credits of hands-on material.
The Science Station In The Black Hills
Wheaton College features its own Wheaton College Science Station at the edge of the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota. Here, within an hour's drive of the incredible natural laboratories of Badlands National Park, Wind Cave National Park, Buffalo Gap National Grassland, and Custer State Park, students study a range of environmental subjects in exciting and challenging field environments. At the science station students may enroll in courses in botany, ecology, zoology, geology, and other areas of environmental study all taught in a dynamic field environment.
International Sustainable Development Studies Institute (ISDSI)
ISDSI is an experiential study abroad program that combines cultural and ecological exploration all in collaboration with local communities. With language immersion, expedition travel, culture integration, and home stays students experience Thailand and its complex issues from all levels of society. The courses allow students to travel from the city to remote areas of Thailand by way of backpacking and sea kayaking, studying academically challenging material focused in agriculture, forest, and ocean ecosystems. ISDSI is a program for those who want to be challenged- culturally, academically, physically, and spiritually.
Human Needs And Global Resources (HNGR)
The Human Needs and Global Resources program at Wheaton College places students in internships in developing nations throughout the world. Here students live with and among local people, experiencing day to day life in the developing world firsthand as they endeavor to solve some of life's most basic environmental problems like providing clean drinking water, establishing sustainable agriculture, removing environmental hazards that cause disease transmission, or preserving nature reserves and individual species important to local peoples and cultures.
Au Sable Institute
As a participating college of the Au Sable Institute, Wheaton students can take courses at any of Au Sable's four campuses worldwide (Michigan, Washington, Kenya, or India) as Wheaton credits and are eligible for grants, scholarships, fellowships, and other forms of aid. Au Sable is a uniquely, intentionally, and explicitly Christian field institute in environmental studies founded on the biblical mandate to care for God's creation. At Au Sable students not only experience exciting classes, course assignments, and field work in environmental studies but become part of a Christian community of scientists, teachers, and resource professionals dedicated to expressing Christian faith, witness, and service through acts of environmental stewardship.
Woods Hole Consortium
As of January 2011 the Environmental Studies Program of Wheaton College is the newest official member of the Woods Hole Consortium, a group of colleges whose students are permitted to participate in special courses in environmental studies at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Woods Hole MBL is one of the world’s oldest, most famous, and most prestigious biological field stations where world-class scientists are involved daily in primary research and investigation in all areas of environmental science. Many of these same scientists also teach courses in their area of expertise during a special fall session of courses designed for undergraduate students, the Semester in Environmental Science (SES) >> . The SES program is designed to equip the next generation of scientists and policy makers with the knowledge and skills to address today's complex environmental issues. With Wheaton College now a member of the Woods Hole consortium, Wheaton students can take courses in the SES program as Wheaton courses with the credits automatically applied toward fulfilling graduation requirements and in the Environmental Studies major just as if they were offered on campus.