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. 

MATH 231IDEAs in Action General Education logo Calculus of Functions of One Variable I H, F4
MATH 232IDEAs in Action General Education logo Calculus of Functions of One Variable II H, F4
MATH 233IDEAs in Action General Education logo Calculus of Functions of Several Variables H, F4
MATH 383First Course in Differential Equations H3
CHEM 101
101L
IDEAs in Action General Education logo General Descriptive Chemistry I
and IDEAs in Action General Education logo Quantitative Chemistry Laboratory I H, F
4
CHEM 102
102L
IDEAs in Action General Education logo General Descriptive Chemistry II
and Quantitative Chemistry Laboratory II H, F
4
PHYS 114IDEAs in Action General Education logo General Physics I: For Students of the Life Sciences F4
or PHYS 118 IDEAs in Action General Education logo Introductory Calculus-based Mechanics and Relativity
PHYS 115IDEAs in Action General Education logo General Physics II: For Students of the Life Sciences F4
or PHYS 119 IDEAs in Action General Education logo Introductory Calculus-based Electromagnetism and Quanta
COMP 110IDEAs in Action General Education logo Introduction to Programming and Data Science H3
or COMP 116 Introduction to Scientific Programming
or PHYS 231 IDEAs in Action General Education logo Physical Computing
or BMME 201 Computer Methods in Biomedical Engineering
Total Hours34
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

Core Requirements
ENVR 205Engineering Tools for Environmental Problem Solving3
ENVR 275Global Climate Change: Interdisciplinary Perspectives1
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 Hours13

Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Visit Program Website

160 Rosenau Hall, CB# 7431

(919) 966-3844

Program Director (Minor)

Joe Brown

JoeBrown@unc.edu

Director of Undergraduate Studies

Amanda Northcross

amandaln@email.unc.edu

Interim Chair

Rebecca Fry

ESE Student Services

Advising questions and more

ESEStudentServices@unc.edu