Minor in Environment and Society
Undergraduate Minor
(Minimum of 12 credits required)
Program coordinator/contact:
Stacey Balkan, Associate Professor, English & Environmental Humanities, sbalkan@fau.edu
The Undergraduate program in "Environment and Society" introduces students to the intersecting fields of Environmental and Climate Science, Environmental Humanities (inclusive of Literature and the Visual Arts), Political Science, Sociology, History, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Careers in Environmental Journalism, Environmental Consulting, Climate Change Mitigation, and Postsecondary Education in Environmental Humanities and Environmental Studies require interdisciplinary study across the Humanities, Geosciences, and Social Sciences. The expanding academic discipline of Environmental Humanities, which recognizes that our environmental dilemmas are fundamentally problems of ethics and political power, demands fluency in this expanding field of study.
Students may earn this minor by completing 12 credits in courses that focus on Environment and Society. Students may choose from the content courses below to meet the 12-credit requirement.
Of the 12 credit hours required for the minor, 9 must be at the upper-division level; at least 75% of required credits for the minor must be completed at FAU; and students completing the minor must earn a minimum overall FAU grade point average of 2.0 within the coursework required.
Required courses:
LIT4434: Literature and the Environment (Spring 2026, Dr. Stacey Balkan)
EVR4112: Hazards, Climate, and People (Fall 2025, Dr. Erik Johanson)
Elective courses, choose two from below:
In addition to the elective courses listed here, students may take one 3-credit special topics class focused on Environment and Society, from any department, approved by the ES director.
(The following list of courses represents current and past course offerings in relevant departments. Please contact the program coordinator for current course offerings, or refer to FAU's Registration Portal for courses in the following areas.)
AMH3420: History of Florida (Fall 2025, Dr. Evan Bennett)
AMH3630: American Environmental History
AMH4694: America and the Sea
ANT 4930: Zooarchaeology (Spring 2026, Dr. Katharine Napora)
ANT 4419: The Anthropology of Nature (Spring 2026, Dr. Adriana María Garriga López)
ANT 4532 Epidemics: Culture, Science, and Policy
ANT 4480 Global Health & Culture (Spring 2026, Dr. Katharina Rynkiewich)
CRW 4211: Nonfiction Workshop (Fall 2025, Prof. Stephanie Anderson)
EEC 4237: Exploring Natural Habitats as a Curriculum for Young Learners (Spring 2026, Dr. Yash Bhagwanji)
ENG3822.005: Introduction to Literary Studies/Reading Energy (Fall 2025, Dr. Stacey Balkan)
ENG3822.004: Introduction to Literary Studies (Fall 2025, Dr. Carissa Ma)
ENV1001: Introduction to Environmental Science
ENV 4072: Introduction to Pollution Prevention and Sustainability (Fall 2025, Dr. Masoud Jahandar Lashaki)
ESC2000: Blue Planet (Fall 2025, Dr. Tobin Hindle)
EVR1110: Climate Change: The Human Dimensions
EVR2017: Environment and Society
GEO4938: Climate Change: Myths, Realities, and Solutions
INR4350: Global Environmental Politics and Policies
JOU4314: Environmental Journalism
LIT4001: Reading the Environment (Fall 2025, Dr. Stacey Balkan)
LIT4225: World Literature: Critical Approaches (Spring 2026, Dr. Carissa Ma)
PAD 2081: Risk and Resilience to Natural Hazards (Fall 2026, Dr. Kaila Witkowski)
PHI 3640: Environmental Ethics (Spring 2026, Dr. Sarah Malanowski)
POS4697: US Environmental Law and Policy
SYD3510: Environmental Sociology
SYP4464: Sociology of Climate and Disaster (Fall 2025, Dr. Patricia Widener)
WST 2531: Gender and Climate Change (Spring 2026, Prof. Daniella Orias)
WST 4349: Green Consciousness
*New courses will be added to the program each term; and current course syllabi may be accessed through the university's Simple Syllabus database.