Engineering for Environmental Change, Climate, and Health Minor
This minor is designed to train students with an interest in developing engineering skills focused on building public health resilience to climate and environmental change. Climate-related challenges will include droughts, floods, heatwaves and extreme weather events, which in turn impact air pollution, water availability and quality, toxic releases, food and nutrition, infectious and non-communicable diseases, and will increase migration and conflict pressure and exacerbate health inequities. As environmental scientists and engineers located within the top public school of public health, the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering (ESE) is ideally positioned to provide holistic, intersectoral responses to mitigate and prepare for these upcoming and pressing environmental challenges. Join the minor to learn about climate change, health/risk assessment, environmental processes, and engineering tools to provide quantitative answers to complex environmental questions.
Information about the application process can be found on the department website.
In addition to the program requirements listed below, students must:
- take at least nine hours of their minor "core" requirements at UNC–Chapel Hill
- earn a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.000 in the minor core requirements. Some programs may require higher standards for minor or specific courses.
For more information, please consult the degree requirements section of the catalog.
Prerequisite Courses
Students may apply for the minor any semester after completing MATH 233. Admitted students must have an average GPA of 3.0 or higher in the minor's prerequisite courses.
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| MATH 231 |  Calculus of Functions of One Variable I H, F | 4 |
| MATH 232 | Calculus of Functions of One Variable II H, F | 4 |
| MATH 233 | Calculus of Functions of Several Variables H, F | 4 |
| MATH 383 | First Course in Differential Equations H | 3 |
| CHEM 101 & 101L | General Descriptive Chemistry I and Quantitative Chemistry Laboratory I H, F | 4 |
| CHEM 102 & 102L | General Descriptive Chemistry II and Quantitative Chemistry Laboratory II H, F | 4 |
| PHYS 114 | General Physics I: For Students of the Life Sciences F | 4 |
| or PHYS 118 | Introductory Calculus-based Mechanics and Relativity | |
| PHYS 115 | General Physics II: For Students of the Life Sciences F | 4 |
| or PHYS 119 | Introductory Calculus-based Electromagnetism and Quanta | |
| COMP 110 | Introduction to Programming and Data Science H | 3 |
| or COMP 116 | Introduction to Scientific Programming | |
| or PHYS 231 | Physical Computing | |
| or BMME 201 | Computer Methods in Biomedical Engineering | |
| Total Hours | 34 | |
| H | Honors version available. An honors course fulfills the same requirements as the nonhonors version of that course. Enrollment and GPA restrictions may apply. |
| F | FY-Launch class sections may be available. A FY-Launch section fulfills the same requirements as a standard section of that course, but also fulfills the FY-SEMINAR/FY-LAUNCH First-Year Foundations requirement. Students can search for FY-Launch sections in ConnectCarolina using the FY-LAUNCH attribute. |
Core Requirements
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Core Requirements | ||
| ENVR 205 | Engineering Tools for Environmental Problem Solving | 3 |
| ENVR 275 | Global Climate Change: Interdisciplinary Perspectives | 1 |
| Select one health/risk assessment course from the following list: | 3 | |
| Health Effects of Environmental Agents | ||
| Environmental Risk Assessment | ||
| Epidemiology for Environmental Scientists | ||
| Global Environmental Health Inequities | ||
| Systems Biology in Environmental Health | ||
| Select one environmental process course from the following list: | 3 | |
| Air quality and atmospheric processes | ||
| Aerosol Physics and Chemistry | ||
| Air Pollution, Chemistry, and Physics | ||
| Sustainable water resources | ||
| Chemical Equilibria in Natural Waters | ||
| Environmental Health Microbiology | ||
| Groundwater Hydrology | ||
| Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, and Global Health | ||
| Water and Sanitation Planning and Policy in Less Developed Countries | ||
| Analysis of Water Resource Systems | ||
| Physical/Chemical Treatment Processes | ||
| Problems in Environmental Sciences and Engineering (section 002) | ||
| Select one engineering tools course from the following list: | 3 | |
| Introduction to Environmental Modeling | ||
| Temporal GIS and Space/Time Geostatistics for the Environment and Public Health | ||
| Sustainable Energy Systems | ||
| Policy Design for Environment, Climate, and Health | ||
| Sanitation for Development | ||
| Numerical Methods | ||
| Environmental Physics I | ||
| Environmental Physics II | ||
| Senior Capstone Course | ||
| Managing Environmental Financial Risk | ||
| Total Hours | 13 | |
Department Programs
Major
Minor
Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering
160 Rosenau Hall, CB# 7431
(919) 966-3844
Interim Chair
Rebecca Fry
