Learning and Engaging with Sustainability

The degree, course, and service learning options offered at UC Berkeley allow students to increase their understanding of the complex issue of sustainability. Cutting-edge research contributes to finding solutions to existing problems and expands learning outcomes. Grants, class projects, and student organizations help tie what is learned in the classroom and the lab to real world outcomes.

Addressing Complex Environmental Issues

The Berkeley Institute of the Environment (BIE) is a campus-wide initiative created to leverage UC Berkeley’s collective resources for multidisciplinary research, teaching, and action to help address the planet’s most critical environmental problems. 

The Institute’s goals are to address complex environmental problems through:

• Faculty Roundtables and Working Groups: Fostering collaboration and new ways of thinking about critical environmental problems across disciplines.
• Research Programs: Applying the most promising real world environmental solutions through demonstration projects, locally and around the world.
• Student Programs: Training a new generation of environmental researchers, citizens and professionals.

On BIE’s environmental portal find information on more about the over 450 environmental and sustainability courses, at least 10% of departments offer at least one of these courses.

Berkeley Law and the Energy and Resources Group (ERG) Create Concurrent Degree

Students are now able to earn both a J.D and an M.S. or M.A. ERG degree after four years of study through a Concurrent Master’s Program. Interest in energy-related legal work means increased job opportunities for graduates, and this program will explore the synergies between the two fields. ERG works within science, policy, and business communities to tackle issues in clean energy, climate change, ecosystems, and biodiversity, while the Law School had one of the first environmental law programs in the country. The cross-disciplinary program will admit its first students in Fall 2011.

Berkeley Leads in Green Chemistry

The Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry promotes activities critical to achieving sustainability and aims to develop greener chemical products. This year the center successfully redesigned lab experiments for Berkeley’s introductory chemistry classes, supported a student seminar on green chemistry, added new labs for Chemistry 4A and 4B, and has worked to develop three new advanced graduate-level chemistry classes. Now Chem1A labs on campus include numerous experiments investigating topics such as bio-fuels and ocean acidification, with overall goals of waste reduction, “using fewer nasty chemicals, while teaching students how chemistry can be used to solve problems.”*

*Robert Sanders, “Green Chemistry in the lab and beyond,” UC Berkeley NewsCenter, March 22, 2011.

Learn More about campus academic opportunities and accomplishments.

 

CAMPUS LEARNING & ACADEMICS RESOURCES UCB Environment and Sustainability Portal – BIE: Find out more about the 400 environmental courses, some 300 faculty, 86 academic degree programs, and dozens of research centers at UCB. UC Berkeley Extension: Sustainable practice courses, from sustainable design to solar energy, corporate social responsibility, and water resource management. Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry: advancing Green Chemistry through research, teaching, and engagement. Student Environmental Groups: Over 25 student groups focus on sustainability issues and activities Building Sustainability at Cal is a service learning program, coordinated by students, that trains and utilizes students to help reduce the environmental footprint of campus buildings.   Energy DeCal is a student-facilitated group study course that explores the social, environmental and economic consequences of our carbon-based economy.  Green Campus is a student-led campaign to identify and reduce campus energy waste through improvements in energy use behaviors, student purchasing decisions and operations changes. Residential and Student Service Programs provides a variety of environmentally friendly programs for students that support the Cal community.