Do you want to reverse environmental injustices by understanding and addressing the root causes? Do you want to work in a field that integrates social and environmental perspectives? Do you want to develop skills with immediate application in a wide range of career options? These are all great reasons to earn a Minor in Environmental Justice.
What is Environmental Justice?
Environmental Justice considers the intersection of social justice and environmental issues. Building on prior civil and human rights movements in under-represented and under-resourced communities, it links spatial analysis and theories of human-environment relationships to remedy inequitable distribution of a wide range of environmental risks and benefits. These span urban, industrial, rural, and suburban settings and may include concerns such as air, water, and soil contamination; climate change mitigation and adaptation; allocation of environmental goods such as green spaces and outdoor recreation; and food, energy, water, and transportation systems, with major implications for public health, environmental hazards, urban design, community and economic development, natural resource management, and infrastructure planning.
Why Study Environmental Justice at UNH?
Our Environmental Justice Minor is one of very few university programs in this field. The curriculum provides a perspective that is deeply geographic, incorporating human-environment relationships, spatial analysis, and local-to-global dynamics, yet also borrows from other disciplines for depth of knowledge about the social science of racial justice and the biophysical science of environmental phenomena. Our students thereby develop the ability to synthesize diverse fields of knowledge to inform decision making in a wide range of jobs in government, business, and non-profit organizations.
Our students also acquire basic skills in the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to aggregate, analyze, and display data, which positions them well for interesting and well-paying jobs with excellent prospects for lifelong career advancement and learning. Decision makers, practitioners, advocates, and researchers often use these tools to advance environmental justice through the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental ordinances, laws, regulations, policies, and practices that ensure the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income.
Potential Career Areas
- Community development
- Public health
- City, town, or regional planning
- International development
- Environmental and social change advocacy
- Geospatial data analysis
- Natural resources, food systems, and rural livelihoods
- Infrastructure and transportation policy
- Social sciences teacher
- Policy specialist
- Public interest law
Curriculum & Requirements
The Environmental Justice Minor brings an interdisciplinary and geographic perspective to understanding linkages across social justice and environmental issues. The program is designed to attract students who desire the conceptual rigor of liberal arts coursework in social theory as well as marketable skills. Students will graduate with strengths bridging diverse fields of knowledge and synthesizing these into robust analyses to inform decision making. They will be well-positioned to support New Hampshire and our region into the future as our social and environmental policy challenges continue to evolve over time.
Academic policies related to Minors.
- The Environmental Justice minor consists of 20 credits with a C- or better and a 2.0 grade-point average in courses that the minor department approves.
- A minimum of 8 credits of coursework toward the minor must be at the 600 or 700 levels.
- A minimum of 8 credits toward the minor must be coursework under the GEOG subject prefix.
- Students may count GEOG 795 Special Project for up to 4 credits in the Integrated Environmental Justice core category with permission from the Geography Department. This will require the thesis or project to focus on a topic that substantively advances the student’s understanding of environmental justice issues through a deeply integrated social and environmental perspective.
- Up to three courses counted toward UNH Discovery category requirements can "double count" toward the minor.
- Up to two courses can be “cross-counted” toward both the Environmental Justic minor and another minor or major.
| Code | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Requirements | ||
| Environmental Justice Core | ||
| Select one course from the following: | 4 | |
GEOG 581 | Society, Environment and Justice | |
GEOG 701 | Environmental Justice | |
| Social Science Perspectives | ||
| Select one course from the following: | 4 | |
GEOG 405 | There Is No Planet B | |
GEOG 500 | Making Change: Social and Environmental Justice in Practice | |
GEOG 550 | Sub-Saharan Africa: Environmental Politics and Development | |
GEOG 673 | Political Ecology | |
SOC 565 | Environment and Society | |
SOC 665 | Environmental Sociology | |
SOC 730 | Communities and the Environment | |
| Racial Justice | ||
| Select one course from the following: 1 | 4 | |
SOC 530 | Race and Racism | |
SOC 645 | Class, Status and Power | |
LLC 444I | US Latinx Cities: Urban Culture, Society and Space | |
NAIS 400 | Introduction to Native American and Indigenous Studies | |
EDUC 525 | Teaching Race | |
CLAS 551 | Race, Ethnicity, Class & Classics | |
PHIL 419 | Race, Gender and Social Justice | |
ENGL 440A | Honors/On Race in Culture and Society | |
ENGL 550 | Introduction to the Literature and Culture of Race | |
ENGL 581 | Reading the Postcolonial Experience | |
ENGL 738 | Asian American Studies | |
ENGL 778 | Race and Gender in Film and Popular Culture | |
CMN 567 | Gender, Race, and Class in the Media | |
CMN 614 | Gender, Race and Technology | |
| Biophysical Environment | ||
| Select one course from the following: 2 | 4 | |
GEOG 670 | Climate and Society | |
GEOG 560 | Natural Hazards and Human Disasters | |
GEOG 572 | Geography of the Natural Environment | |
GEOG 574 | Global Landscapes and Environmental Processes | |
NR 743 | Addressing Arctic Challenges | |
| Spatial Analysis | ||
| Select one course from the following: 3 | 4 | |
GEOG 591 | Making Maps: GIS Fundamentals | |
NR 658 | Introduction to Geographic Information Systems | |
ESCI 777 | GIS for Earth & Environmental Sciences | |
| Total Credits | 20 | |
- 1
Alternate courses on racial justice by Geography Department approval.
- 2
Alternate biological science, physical science, or engineering courses above the 400 level by Geography Department approval.
Students completing a major or minor in the following departments can substitute a relevant course at the 500 level or above: Natural Resources and the Environment, Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Sciences, Agriculture, Nutrition and Food Systems, Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Biological Sciences
- 3
Alternate GIS courses by Geography Department approval.
Integration across disciplines
- Students will integrate social science, spatial, and biophysical perspectives across Geography and other disciplines to understand social justice implications of environmental decisions.
Spatial Analysis
- Students will analyze the spatial relationship between social justice and environment using Geographic Information System (GIS) tools.
