• www.esf.edu/urban/minor.htm

Coordinator: Dr. Margaret Bryant

Twelve credit hours (4 courses) of urban concentration courses are required to satisfy the minor: 6 credits of required courses and 6 credits of electives outside the student's major. Entry into the minor requires a minimum cumulative GPA of 2.70 in residence at ESF.

Core Course Requirements

To satisfy the Minor in Urban Environmental Science, the student must take the following core courses:

and three credits of a "Capstone" project accomplished from among the following:

A student enrolled in the minor, will present to the advisory committee in the sixth week of the semester prior to engagement in the learning endeavor, a plan for a “capstone” experience, which will be undertaken working in conjunction with a faculty member(s) who will oversee an off-campus internship (courses numbered 499), independent-study project (courses numbered 498), or completion of a final project undertaken in a special topic (courses numbered 496) or established 3-credit course. All students will present their completed projects to the advisory committee and their peers in the last week of classes, depending on the semester of completion (fall or spring). All students currently enrolled in the minor are expected to attend capstone presentations.

Elective Course Requirements

Outside the student’s Major, 6 additional credits selected from the list of approved courses, which are offered in a faculty other than that of the student’s major, and which are above and beyond those courses being used to satisfy a student’s major, general education or professional requirements.

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Urban Forestry Minor

Coordinator: Dr. Eddie Bevilacqua

The Urban Forestry minor will provide students with the opportunity to better understand complex human-dominated ecosystems where trees and people coexist in close proximity. Understanding and attempting to manage this complexity requires a basic knowledge of plant physiology, nutrition, and tending at the individual tree level (arboriculture). In addition, the urban forester also must understand the changing dynamic of groups of trees and the effects of those trees on numerous ecosystem services and human health and well-being in a city (urban forestry). Because human activity is so dominant in the urban ecosystem, it is essential that the urban forester have some understanding of ecological interactions and human motivations for sustaining and maintaining existing trees (urban ecology). The courses listed below will provide the professional knowledge required for careers in these and related fields.

Fifteen credit hours are required:

• ESF 300 Introduction to Geospatial Information Technologies (3)
• EST 220 Urban Ecology (3)
• FOR 480 Urban Forestry (3)
• FOR 481 Introduction to Arboriculture (3)
• LSA 480 Seminar in Urban Design (3) or LSA 451 Comprehensive Land Planning (3)

The interdisciplinary minor includes courses taught in the Departments of Forest and Natural Resources Management, Environmental Studies, and Landscape Architecture. Admission to this minor requires students to have (1) completed a general ecology course (e.g. EFB 320 General Ecology), (2) a cumulative grade point average of 2.70 or greater after one semester at ESF (or as a transfer student with the same GPA).

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Water Resources Minor

Coordinators: Dr. Kim Schulz (EB), and Dr. Chuck Kroll (ERE)

Water resources is a multi-disciplinary field that integrates the physical, geochemical and biological processes of the water cycle and their application to management of water resources, water policy, and human dimensions of water quality and quantity. The interdisciplinary minor in water resources is designed as a flexible program for undergraduate students to study and integrate principles of physical hydrology, geochemistry, aquatic and terrestrial ecology, natural resources management, and environmental policy. The minor can include courses in the Departments of Forest and Natural Resources Management, Environmental Resources Engineering, Environmental and Forest Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Studies, as well as relevant courses at Syracuse University. The minor comprises 15 credit hours total that must be distributed across three departments at minimum (i.e., course numbers with three separate prefixes), with the intent of covering a breadth of disciplines. These courses must include at least one foundation course, either FOR 442 Watershed Ecology and Management, or EFB 424 Limnology: Study of Inland Waters. Courses taken for the minor can also count toward students' majors or other academic requirements, subject to those other program guidelines. Students are responsible for meeting the prerequisite requirements for individual courses, as applicable.

Admission to this minor requires that a student from any ESF program has a cumulative grade point average of 2.70 or better after one semester at ESF (or as a transfer student with same GPA).

Required foundation course; students must take at least one of these:

• FOR 442 Watershed Ecology and Management (3)
• EFB 424 Limnology: Study of Inland Waters (3)

Approved elective courses that count toward the minor include the following, subject to availability and pre-requisite requirements. Other relevant courses may be petitioned. Note that some ERE elective courses may require prerequisites, such as calculus, chemistry, and programming; students who are interested in these courses should consider taking the engineering sections of their calculus sequence.

Fall courses:

• EFB 487 Fisheries Science and Management (3)
• EFB 488 Fisheries Science Practicum (1)
• EFB 496 Watershed Ecology with Focus on the Hudson River (2)
• EFB 500 The Hudson River Watershed: Source to Sink in Eight Days (1-2)
• EFB 525 Limnology Practicum (2)
• EFB 554 Aquatic Entomology (3)
• EFB 681 Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration and Enhancement (2)
• ENS 601 Water Resources Management (3)
• ENS 607 Wetland Practicum (2-3)
• ERE 412 River Form and Process (3)
• ERE 475 Ecological Engineering for Water Quality (3)
• ERE 527 Stormwater Management (3)
• EST 625 Wetland Management Policy (3)
• FCH 515 Methods in Environmental Chemical Analysis (3)
• FOR 338 Meteorology (3)

Spring courses:

• EFB 423 Marine Ecology (4) (even years only)
• EFB 486 Ichthyology (3)
• EFB 492 Senior Synthesis in Aquatic and Fisheries Science (1)
• EFB 542 Freshwater Wetland Ecosystems (3)
• EFB 692 Ecology and Management of Waterfowl (3)
• ERE 340 Engineering Hydrology and Hydraulics (4)
• ERE 440 Water and Wastewater Treatment (3)
• ERE 445 Hydrologic Modeling (3)
• ERE 508 Water - An Incredible Journey (3)
• ERE 570 Hydrology in a Changing Climate (3)
• FCH 510 Environmental Chemistry I (3)
• FCH 525 Oceanography (3)
• FOR 340 Watershed Hydrology (3)

Approved Syracuse University courses:

• CIE 352 Water Resources Engineering (3)
• CIE 457 Biogeochemistry (3)
• EAR 400 Contaminant Hydrogeology (3)
• EAR 400 Chemical Oceanography and Paleooceanography (3)
• EAR 401/601 Hydrogeology (3)
• EAR 612 Water-Energy Seminar
• GEO 316 River Environments
• GEO 422 Water: Environment, Society and Politics