Helga Otto Haub School of Environment
and Natural Resources

The Helga Otto Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources encourages students to explore contemporary natural resource issues with an interdisciplinary approach that relies on science, economics, sociology, history, ethics, and more. The Haub School is connected to the William D. Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources, which specializes in research and outreach on collaborative approaches to environmental and natural resource challenges. Haub School students are drawn from a variety of academic disciplines and represent a spectrum of interests and training. The Haub School offers two options for undergraduates, including a double major and a minor.

The Haub School offers a full curriculum of courses tailored for students at all college levels. A freshman-level course, ENR 1100, provides a survey of major environmental and natural resource problems and attendant policies from the local to global scales. ENR 2000, a sophomore-level course, introduces students to the human dimensions of ENR problems through a text-based approach to understanding gender, environmental justice, and other cultural issues from the local to global scales. Students then complete a capstone series, including ENR 4000 and ENR 4900, in which they work in interdisciplinary teams to consider the environmental, social, economic, and other impacts associated with a current environmental and natural resource challenge. Students are strongly encouraged to complete ENR 4000 and ENR 4900 in the fall and spring, respectively, of the same academic year. Students taking ENR 4900 choose between a regional and international section.  Students in the international section may travel abroad with the class to learn about the issue in place.  ENR 3900 is a seminar series that allows students to explore a particular ENR topic in depth. In Risk Analysis, ENR 4500, students learn to quantify and understand scientific uncertainty and its role in ENR challenges.

The ENR major is completed in tandem with a second affiliated major in any other discipline. ENR majors are required to complete 14 hours in core ENR courses including ENR 2000, ENR 3900, ENR 4000, ENR 4500, ENR 4900, and ENR 4970; an additional two hours minimum, must be completed in other ENR courses or additional units of ENR 3900 or 4970. ENR 4970 is an internship course in which students gain hands-on experience in an ENR field. In addition to the 16 hours of ENR courses offered by the Haub School, majors also take ENR-relevant distribution courses in six other fields including humanities, statistics, environmental science and natural resource management, biological science, physical science, and social science. A minimum of three hours is required in each of these distribution categories and only one class may be drawn from the student’s affiliated department. An approved list of ENR courses is available from the Haub School. E-mail senr@uwyo.edu to receive a copy of the distribution menus.

Like the major, an ENR minor may augment any discipline in which students choose to major. The ENR minor does not require an internship or the full breadth of distribution requirements, but students are required to take 16 credit hours of coursework including ENR 2000, ENR 3900, ENR 4000, ENR 4500, ENR 4900, and an Environmental Science and Natural Resource Management course.

Learning Outcomes for ENR Students

The primary goal of the ENR major and minor is to add a breadth of understanding in ENR issues to the depth of knowledge the student gains in a traditional discipline (the student’s affiliated major). ENR faculty, staff, and students have identified six major learning outcomes around which the curriculum is structured. These include:

1. Broad familiarity with current ENR issues at scales ranging from local to global.

2. Depth of knowledge about several current ENR issues, including a sophisticated understanding of positive and negative trade-offs in ENR decision-making.

3. An appreciation of the interdisciplinary nature of ENR issues, including an understanding of the basic theories and approaches of ENR disciplines including those in social sciences, humanities, environmental science and natural resource management, statistics, biological sciences, and physical sciences.

4. Knowledge of environmental laws and policies including the content, historical context, and ramifications of major ENR policies such as the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act and others.

5. Understanding of current decision-making processes and their historical context, especially collaborative processes and adaptive management.

6. Development of professional skills, especially refinement of written and oral communication skills, development of critical thinking and analytical skills, leadership and ability to work as a professional in a team environment.