Department of Environmental Sciences

Environmental Sciences Environmental Sciences

The environmental sciences curriculum is designed to give you the intellectual ability, analytical skills and scholarly background necessary to understand and solve environmental problems.

Our program is interdisciplinary. It draws upon resources from related fields to provide tools for rigorous analysis. These tools help us understand environmental problems and formulate decisions that are environmentally sound.

Our Degree Programs

Undergraduate Programs We offer a B.S. degree in environmental science to help you achieve your career goals. Our minors in environment science and sustainability complement many other science-related degrees. Explore Offerings

Graduate Programs We offer three options for a master's degree in environmental science, including two dual degrees in public administration and middle grades education. Learn More

Environmental Sciences in Action

In EVS 440/541 - Wildlife Field Methods for Conservation - environmental studies students learned to capture, sex and age herpetoauna around campus ponds and nature trails.

North Carolina Forest Service worked with environmental sciences professors to help coordinate a control burn of a quadrant of Long Leaf Pine forests on the back of campus.

Boys from the Brick-by-Brick program at Lincoln Elementary School in Leland visited the Center For Marine Sciences to gain first-hand experience in science labs from the environmental sciences, biology and marine biology programs.

Dr. Troy Frensley and his Environmental Interpretation in Protected Areas students presented a public shoe garden exhibit titled “A Walk of Hope: Recovering through Nature, One Step at a Time.” The shoe planters were accompanied by signs the students created to tell the story of how the natural world and plants can heal, renew and empower those facing such challenges, as well as provide facts, information and resources of support.

Environmental sciences professor Anthony Snider works with students in the UNCW Beekeepers Club who maintain a number of beehives in the campus apiary.

Scientist measuring the length of a turtle shell

Person conducting a controlled burn on campus

A youth class of students wearing Environmental Sciences shirts

Find More Information

Apply Your Learning We give our students plenty of real-world opportunities to apply what they learn in the classroom. Jump In!

Active Faculty Our faculty members are actively pursuing their interests and sharing what they love with their students and helping to make our coastal community a better place. Meet Us

Our Mission Science should be inclusive and encourage academic merit. Learn More

Living with Water at Battleship North Carolina

UNCW labs evaluate the effect of groundbreaking flood mitigation efforts on the ecosystem “The marsh there is not the easiest place to work,” admitted Devon Eulie ’05, ’08M, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences. The marsh she refers to surrounds Battleship North Carolina, across the Cape Fear River from downtown Wilmington.

Learn More

Class on the Riverwalk with Battleship in the background

EVS Student Awarded Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship

Delaney McBride, right, who is pursuing a master’s degree in environmental sciences, was one of two UNCW students named to one of the nation’s most prestigious marine science fellowships. The Knauss Fellowship through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program offers students direct experience working on current issues in ocean, coastal and Great Lakes management and research.

Learn More

Excavating Evidence of Early Agricultural Engineering

Within the depths of the lower Cape Fear and Brunswick rivers lie remnants of the region's history of rice cultivation and the enslaved West Africans and their descendants, the Gullah Geechee, who worked the fields. A team of researchers is attempting to document that history.

Learn More