Responding to the environmental challenges we face means making choices, and economics plays a central role in these choices. What are the costs and benefits of doing something about global warming? This specialization integrates biological and environmental sciences with economics to give students the tools they need for careers with NGO's or government, related to the design and evaluation of environmental policies and the management of natural resources.
Please consult with the bsc-advisor.agenvsc [at] mcgill.ca (student advisor) regarding course selections.
YOU MAY TAKE THIS SPECIALIZATION WITH THE FOLLOWING MAJOR: Agricultural Economics
COURSE REQUIREMENTS: 24 credits
To view the list of courses:
Program Requirement:
This specialization integrates environmental sciences and decision making with the economics of environment and sustainable development. It is designed to prepare students for careers in natural resource management and the analysis of environmental problems and policies.
This specialization is limited to students in the Major Agricultural Economics.
For information on academic advising, see: http://www.mcgill.ca/macdonald/studentinfo/advising
Required Courses (12 credits)
-
AGEC 491 Research & Methodology 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Agricultural Economics: Conceptual and philosophical foundations of research methodology, and the procedural aspects of planning, designing and conducting research in applied economics.
Offered by: Agricultural Economics
- Prerequisites: AGEC 201 or equivalent and AGEC 320 or permission of the instructor
- Corequisites: AGEC 425 or permission of the instructor
- Terms
- Fall 2024
- Instructors
- Paul Thomassin
-
ENVB 305 Population & Community Ecology 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Environmental Biology: Interactions between organisms and their environment; historical and current perspectives in applied and theoretical population and community ecology. Principles of population dynamics, feedback loops, and population regulation. Development and structure of communities; competition, predation and food web dynamics. Biodiversity science in theory and practice.
Offered by: Natural Resource Sciences
- Terms
- Winter 2025
- Instructors
- Melissa McKinney
-
ENVB 437 Assessing Environmental Impact 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Environmental Biology: Principles and practice of Environmental Assessment (EA) in Canada and internationally. Exploration of issues surrounding impact assessment for sustainable development in different sectors, including their limitations.
Offered by: Natural Resource Sciences
- Open to U2 students and above.
- Terms
- Winter 2025
- Instructors
- Gordon M Hickey
-
ENVB 506 Quantitative Methods: Ecology 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Environmental Biology: The process of formulating models of natural systems and confronting them with data, along with the necessary statistical computing skills. Emphasis on hands-on experience with current approaches for building, fitting, and comparing models.
Offered by: Natural Resource Sciences
- Winter
- Prerequisites: AEMA 310 and ENVB 305; or graduate student status; or permission of instructor
- Restriction: Not open to students who have taken AEMA 306 or AEMA 406.
- Terms
- Winter 2025
- Instructors
- Denis Roy
Complementary Courses (12 credits)
12 credits chosen from the following list:
-
AGRI 310 Internship in Agr./Environ. 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Agriculture: Internship on working farms or in other appropriate businesses of the agri-food/environment industries.
Offered by: Plant Science
- Restriction: Not open to students who have taken AGRI 201D1/D2.
- Terms
- Fall 2024
- Winter 2025
- Instructors
- Caroline B Begg
- Caroline B Begg
-
BREE 217 Hydrology and Water Resources 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Bioresource Engineering: Introduction to water resources and hydrologic cycle. Precipitation and hydrologic frequency analysis. Soil water processes, infiltration theory and modeling. Evapotranspiration estimation methods and crop water requirements. Surface runoff estimation as a function of land use modifications. Estimation of peak runoff rates. Unit hydrograph. Design of open channels and vegetated waterways.
Offered by: Bioresource Engineering
- Three lectures, one 2-hour lab per week.
- This course carries an additional course charge for field trips.
- This course carries an additional course charge of $19.43 to cover transportation costs for two field trips, which may include a visit to a national weather station and a trip to gain hands-on experience on monitoring water flow in streams.
- Terms
- Winter 2025
- Instructors
- Shiv Prasher
-
BREE 327 Bio-Environmental Engineering 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Bioresource Engineering: An introduction to how humans affect the earth's ecosystem and projections for the needs of food, water, air and energy to support the human population. Ecologically-reasonable coping strategies including biofuels, bioprocessing, waste management, and remediation methods.
Offered by: Bioresource Engineering
- Open to U2 students and above.
- This course carries an additional course charge for field trips.
- his course carries an additional course charge of $11.96 to cover transportation costs for field trips which may include a solar installation site and if registrations permit, a bio-ethanol plant. The fee is refundable only during the withdrawal with full refund period
- Terms
- Fall 2024
- Instructors
- Predrag Sunjka
-
ECON 225 Economics of the Environment 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Economics (Arts): A study of the application of economic theory to questions of environmental policy. Particular attention will be given to the measurement and regulation of pollution, congestion and waste and other environmental aspects of specific economies.
Offered by: Economics
- Restriction: Not open to students who have taken 154-325 or 154-425
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year
-
ECON 326 Ecological Economics 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Economics (Arts): Macroeconomic and structural aspects of the ecological crisis. A course in which subjects discussed include the conflict between economic growth and the laws of thermodynamics; the search for alternative economic indicators; the fossil fuels crisis; and "green'' fiscal policy.
Offered by: Economics
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year
-
ECON 405 Natural Resource Economics 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Economics (Arts): Topics include: Malthusian and Ricardian Scarcity; optimal depletion of renewable and non-renewable resources; exploration, risk and industry structure, and current resources, rent and taxation. Current public policies applied to the resource industries, particularly those of a regulatory nature.
Offered by: Economics
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year
-
ENVB 222 St. Lawrence Ecosystems 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Environmental Biology: Integrative field biology course about the biodiversity and ecology of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems within the St. Lawrence Lowlands. Research projects about the natural history of the regional flora and fauna. Fundamentals of community, ecosystem and landscape ecology.
Offered by: Natural Resource Sciences
- Fall
- This course carries an additional charge of $19.94 to cover the cost of transportation (bus rental) for local field trips. The fee is refundable only during the withdrawal with full refund period.
- Terms
- Fall 2024
- Instructors
- Melissa McKinney
-
ENVB 301 Meteorology 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Environmental Biology: The physical processes underlying weather. Topics include: the atmosphere - its properties (structure and motion), and thermodynamics (stability, heat and moisture); clouds and precipitation; air masses and fronts; mid-latitude weather systems and severe weather.
Offered by: Natural Resource Sciences
- Restrictions: none
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year
-
ENVB 529 GIS for Natural Resource Mgmt 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Environmental Biology: Applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analysis techniques to the presentation and analysis of ecological information, including sources and capture of spatial data; characterizing, transforming, displaying spatial data; and spatial analysis to solve resource management problems.
Offered by: Natural Resource Sciences
- Prerequisite(s): At least one environmental science course and one ecology course or permission of instructor
- Restriction(s): U2 students and above. Not open to students who have taken GEOG 201, GEOG 306 or GEOG 307, ENVB/BREE 430, or BREE 529. Limited to 32 students.
- Fall
- Terms
- Fall 2024
- Instructors
- Jeffrey A Cardille, Viacheslav Adamchuk, Jaskaran Dhiman
-
ENVR 203 Knowledge, Ethics&Environment 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Environment: Introduction to cultural perspectives on the environment: the influence of culture and cognition on perceptions of the natural world; conflicts in orders of knowledge (models, taxonomies, paradigms, theories, cosmologies), ethics (moral values, frameworks, dilemmas), and law (formal and customary, rights and obligations) regarding political dimensions of critical environments, resource use, and technologies.
Offered by: Bieler School of Environment
- Fall - Macdonald Campus; Winter - Downtown
- Section 001: Downtown Campus
- Section 051: Macdonald Campus
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year
-
MGPO 440 Strategies for Sustainability 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Management Policy: This course explores the relationship between economic activity, management, and the natural environment. Using readings, discussions and cases, the course will explore the challenges that the goal of sustainable development poses for our existing notions of economic goals, production and consumption practices and the management of organizations.
Offered by: Management
- Restriction: Open to U2, U3 students only
- Terms
- This course is not scheduled for the 2024-2025 academic year
- Instructors
- There are no professors associated with this course for the 2024-2025 academic year
-
MICR 331 Microbial Ecology 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Microbiology (Agric&Envir Sc): The ecology of microorganisms, primarily bacteria and archaea, and their roles in biogeochemical cycles. Microbial interactions with the environment, plants, animals and other microbes emphasizing the underlying genetics and physiology. Diversity, evolution (microbial phylogenetics) and the application of molecular biology in microbial ecology.
Offered by: Natural Resource Sciences
- Winter
- Prerequisite(s): LSCI 230 or AEBI 212 or ENVR 202 or permission of the instructor.
- Not recommended for U1 students.
- Terms
- Winter 2025
- Instructors
- Brian T Driscoll
-
NRSC 333 Pollution and Bioremediation 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Natural Resource Sciences: The environmental contaminants which cause pollution; sources, amounts and transport of pollutants in water, air and soil; waste management.
Offered by: Natural Resource Sciences
- Fall
- 3 lectures
- Restriction: Not open to students who have taken WILD 333
- Terms
- Fall 2024
- Instructors
- Lyle Whyte, Jessica Head
-
WILD 421 Wildlife Conservation 3 Credits
- Fall
- Winter
- Summer
Offered in the:Resource Development: Study of current controversial issues focusing on wildlife conservation. Topics include: animal rights, exotic species, ecotourism, urban wildlife, multi-use of national parks, harvesting of wildlife, biological controls, and endangered species.
Offered by: Natural Resource Sciences
- Winter
- 3 lectures
- Restriction: Not open to students who have taken NRSC 421.
- Terms
- Winter 2025
- Instructors
- Kyle Elliott