Designing Your Program of Study

In conjunction with your advisor, you will design a plan of graduate study that includes and integrates coursework in each of our program's focus areas:

1. Environmental Science: understanding the physical and biological processes and relationshipos that constitute ecosystems;
2. Environmental Values, Policy, and Planning: understanding the social (e.g. economic, political, institutional) and ethical dimensions of environmental problems.
3. Curriculum and Instructional Methods: understanding learning as a critical, self-reflective, and inquiry-based activity that should be collaboratively undertaken in diverse communities.

The Summer Institute

Your program begins with the four-week intensive Summer Institute, taught by an interdisciplinary team of UNH faculty. The institute curriculum addresses and integrates the three focus areas of the program, with a special emphasis on making connections among them. In conjunction with an attentive program of advising, this experience will help you shape your educational goals and guide you in the creation of a coherent and challenging academic program.

Summer Institute 2004

Choosing Your Elective Courses

You will select a group of elective courses that takes into account your past experiences, future career goals, and the three focus areas of the program. These twenty credits will provide you with a relevant, coherent, and challenging experience in the program. Your advisor will help you choose these courses and will support your progress toward completion of the degree.

Field-Based Practicum

The capstone experience of the program is a field-based Practicum that integrates the three focus areas and builds on your experiences in the Summer Institute and your elective course-work. During this Practicum, you will be asked to show that you can put into practice a thoughtful and effective vision of environmental education. You will spend approximately 60% of your time engaged in hands-on instruction, 30% in curriculum development, and the remaining in onsite instructional planning, research or leadership activities, and other responsibilities appropriate to your internship placement. Through high-quality internship placements, direct supervision by program faculty, and participation in a weekly seminar, you will have the opportunity to work intensively on a curriculum project that pulls together your program experiences and applies them to an authentic educational context. The Practicum will also help you to reflect on the direction of your professional career as an environmental educator and to make specific plans to pursue these goals.