Environmental Policy, Institutions, and Behavior Undergraduate Program

Degree: B.S.

About the Program

Environmental Policy, Institutions and Behavior (EPIB) examines the human dimensions of environmental problems and solutions. It addresses such issues as how human actions affect the environment; how societies adapt to changes in natural resource availability; and how individuals, nations, and international agencies respond to environmental hazards. Courses in the program deal with local, regional, and national differences in the use of resources; social and environmental aspects of health and illness; strategies for environmental management; ethical, moral, and legal dimensions of environmental and resource issues; and roles of industry, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations in environmental affairs.

What is EPIB?

View a video on our department’s undergraduate program.

Learning Goals

Students graduating from EPIB will understand and analyze the varied perspectives offered by the social and natural sciences regarding the causes and consequences of social, ecological, and environmental change. This includes interactions among natural resources, climate, population, energy use and technology, health, forces of globalization, social institutions, and cultural values. Students will acquire the skills to use appropriate conceptual and methodological tools to structure inquiries about human-environment interactions and their solutions. And finally, students will undertake their work guided by ethical considerations. They will identify their own values with respect to environmental, health, and food issues; and they will evaluate and address the ethical dimensions and implications of related problems, assessments, plans, and communication, including their differentiated social impacts.
(For more details see the EPIB Learning Goals document (109k PDF). Also see the Courses by Learning Goal (153k PDF).)

Experiential Learning

The Department of Human Ecology has a 3 credit requirement for experiential learning which also fulfills the SEBS core requirement. It is through this requirement that you learn through putting into practice new knowledge and skills. EPIB offers many ways for you to fulfill your experiential learning in our department. The three major categories are 1) experiential learning-based classes you sign up for where you get assigned a project internship through a class-based or arranged internship or project 2) independent study with a professor doing readings and research 3) an outside internship for credit with oversight from a Human Ecology faculty member. There are also additional ways that you can earn experiential learning credits through options outside the Department of Human Ecology including some HE undergraduate program director study abroad classes, Aresty research program, and George H. Cook Scholars research program. To learn more about experiential learning in EPIB go to our Experiential Learning Page.

See our checklist for EPIB Graduation Requirements (268k PDF)

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School of Environmental and Biological Core Requirements

See the School of Environmental and Biological Core requirements

This list of courses is for basic guidance. Enrolled students, please use Degree Navigator to evaluate your requirements.