Environmental Science and Management Degree Program

Admission is competitive. It is based on grades, letters of recommendation, and an application essay. A GPA of 3.0 or higher on a 4.0 scale is expected. The program admissions committee will evaluate each applicant for admission and may interview applicants over phone, video conferencing, or in person. A four-year U.S. bachelor’s degree (or its equivalent) in any academic field from an accredited college or university is required.

International student applications must include TOEFL, TOEFL Essentials, or IELTS scores or a waiver of proof of English Proficiency and certified English translation of all materials when applicable. International students must have a TOEFL score of 90 or higher, and TOEFL Essentials score of 9 or higher or an IELTS score of 7 or higher. Alternatively, international student applicants can show proof of having graduated from an undergraduate or graduate program in a country where English is the primary language. TOEFL or IELTS scores must be within the last two years.

The ESM master’s degree has foundations in environmental science and in management, with required courses in data analysis and science-policy connections and specialized coursework in marine science, climate science, or earth resources and management. The degree program culminates in a capstone project that is designed to address a specific real-world environmental science-management convergence problem and is sponsored by an outside client . The capstone is a critical part of the student experience and is developed with input from faculty across CEOE. Students will work in small groups on their assigned project using skills and knowledge acquired in previous semesters. The outside sponsors can be at the local, national, or international level, will leverage faculty connections, and will include agencies such as Delaware’s Department of Natural Resource and Environmental Control (DNREC), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the World Bank, or the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The capstone project offers the kind of real-world work experience and teamwork skills sought by employers, as well as professional connections in the environmental sector. In special circumstances, students may opt out of the capstone experience and instead write an analytical paper if they are interested in continuing on to a PhD or seeking research experience. The ESM master’s degree is designed to be completed in two years.

Course requirements are listed below. Students choose the Marine Science, Climate Science or Earth Resources track. Within each track, students select two science courses and two management courses as electives.

Required for all:

• MAST 675/ECON 675 Natural Resource Economics

• ENSC 601 Fundamentals of Environmental Science

• MAST 663/UAPP 663 Decision Tools for Policy Analysis

Choose one:

• UAPP 707 Public Policy Analysis

• POSC 818 Environmental Politics and Policy

• UAPP 690 Seminar: Public Administration

Choose two:

• SPPA 704 Advanced Quantitative Methods

• SPPA 721 Data Science Tools for Evidence-based Policy

• GEOG 604 GIS for Environmental Research

Choose one:

• MAST 610 Coupling Human to Natural Systems

• MAST 628 Offshore Wind Power

 Choose one Capstone Experience:

• MAST 664 Environmental Issue Capstone

• A student may write an analytical paper in lieu of the capstone experience, with the approval of a CEOE or CEOE-affiliated faculty member. The analytical paper is an article-length paper targeting publication in an academic journal.

Marine Science Track

Choose two science courses:

• MAST 602 Physical Oceanography

• MAST 609 The Ocean and Climate Change

• MAST 621 Coastal Field Biology

• MAST 627 Biological Oceanography

• MAST 637 Geological Oceanography

• MAST 646 Chemical Oceanography

Choose two management courses:

• MAST 619 Environmental Justice in Disasters (owned by SPPA)

• MAST 628 Offshore Wind Power

• MAST 662 Climate Change: Policy, Equity and Mitigation

• MAST 674 Legal Aspects of the Coastal Zone

• MAST 676/ ECON 676 Environmental Economics

Climate Science Track

Choose two science courses:

• MAST 609 The Ocean and Climate Change

• GEOG 612 Physical Climatology

• GEOG 657 Climate Dynamics

• GEOG 658 Paleoclimatology

Choose two management courses:

• ENEP 626 Climate Change: Science, Policies & Political Economy

• GEOG 616 Climate Fiction, Science and Communication

• GEOG 619 Climate Change Adaptation

• MAST 639 Renewable Energy and Climate: Law, Regulation, and Environment

• MAST 662 Climate Change: Policy, Equity and Mitigation

• MAST 688 Climate Change Economics

Earth Resources Track

Choose two science courses:

• GEOL 612 (1 credit) Geology of Strategic Mineral Deposits and GEOL 613 (2 credits) Analytics of Minerals for Risk Management

• GEOL 621 Environmental and Applied Geology

• GEOL 628 Hydrogeology

• GEOG 632 Environmental Hydrology

• PLSC 640 Field Methods in Soil-Water-Air

• PLSC 621 Nonpoint Source Pollution

Choose two management courses:

• MAST 676/ ECON 676 Environmental Economics

• GEOG 622 Resources Development and the Environment

• UAPP/APEC 611 Regional Watershed Management

• APEC 820 Experimental Economics

• GEOG 655 (1 credit) Certification Systems for Sustainable Development and GEOG 669 (2 credits) Minerals and Ecological Economics

The capstone is a central part of the student experience. It is designed to address a specific real-world policy problem and is sponsored by an outside client. Students work in small groups on the assigned project using skills and knowledge acquired in the classroom. The outside sponsor can be at the local, national, or international level and might, for example, include agencies such as Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, the World Bank, or the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Sponsors change from year to year and work with CEOE faculty to design each year’s capstone projects.