School of Engineering

Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering (EECE)
The Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering (EECE) focuses on education and research in environmental engineering science, energy systems and chemical engineering. The department’s 16 tenured faculty members instruct more than 100 undergraduate students and 70 doctoral students in the application of rigorous science to environmental issues and the latest intellectual and technological approaches to sustainability. Together, they pursue creative resolutions to the planet’s environmental problems. Among the department’s many active research programs are explorations of bio-energy production, air quality and particle emission control, and water and wastewater treatment.

For a list of classes in Engineering, click here.

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Olin School of Business
The Olin Business School works collaboratively to educate and inform its staff, faculty, and students about sustainability. Science Frontiers, a program started by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in 2006, focuses on advancing the understanding, awareness, and opportunities for science and technology innovation in St. Louis and its surrounding communities. The Skandalaris Center works with a broad range of partners to understand how innovation economies grow. One project related to this effort is The Innovation Mapping Project, which identifies specific areas of technology and science that offer a high probability for expansion, collaboration, and ultimately economic growth. Changes to operations have been made as well, including providing reusable aluminum bottles at MBA orientations and charging for non-reusable cups but offering free water to anyone who brings a reusable bottle to Olin Café. A case competition focused on making building practices more sustainable will begin soon. For more information, please visit http://sces.wustl.edu.

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Environmental Sustainability

Pathfinder Program
The Pathfinder Program in Environmental Sustainability provides a four-year association between small groups of undergraduate students and a senior faculty mentor. The program uses a clustered approach to course work augmented with case studies that explore problems and solutions in environmental sustainability. Case studies include a comparison of National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management maintenance of the Mojave Desert and issues associated with volcanoes, tsunamis, landslides and earthquakes in Hawaii. The program culminates during students’ senior year with capstone projects addressing issues and solutions based on students’ area of interest. Students apply for this program when applying for undergraduate admission.

Environmental Studies Senior Seminar
Environmental Studies Senior Seminar provides students majoring in environmental science and environmental social science with the opportunity to communicate across disciplinary boundaries. The current course topic — The River des Peres: an Urban Stream — is evaluated through the lenses of history, water quality analysis, wastewater engineering, and law and policy, enabling students to examine sustainable watershed practices and reflect on decision-making, both current and historic. Students collaborate with a community partner to address current needs in the watershed.

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Washington University Law

Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic
The Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic provides pro bono legal and technical services to environmental and community organizations in the greater St. Louis area while simultaneously offering an educational experience for students from across the University. The interdisciplinary structure of the clinic is unique among environmental law clinics. Student attorneys (second- and third-year law students) and student consultants (graduate students and upper-level undergraduates in engineering, environmental studies, medicine, social work, and business) work in interdisciplinary teams under faculty supervision. They offer legal and technical assistance on environmental and community health problems to individuals and organizations unable to pay for such services. Teams work on issues relating to air and water quality, lead poisoning, environmental justice, habitat destruction, and wetlands. More information

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College of Architecture / Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design

Sustainable Design
Architecture’s course in sustainable design offers structured lectures and design projects related to a series of environmental issues critical to practical building and site design. Team projects include solar gain and shading, water conservation in building, passive heating and cooling strategies, and sustainable materials. Student housing and retrofitting design projects are located in the community of Wellston.

Community Building, Building Community
Using walking tours and discussions of St. Louis, this undergraduate course gradually reveals to students an interrelated set of histories that have given shape both to St. Louis specifically and to American metropolitan landscapes generally. The walking tours take a core sample of St. Louis, both geographically and historically. Along the core sample, the students encounter communities new and old, large and small, rich and poor, heterogeneous and homogeneous, successful and unsuccessful. Crucial questions concerning the ethics of architecture within larger social and ethical frameworks begin to take shape. Architects build walls, literally and figuratively, and this course explores what happens on the other side of the wall.

Seminar in Community Design: Green Grocery in the Ville
Following a public design forum held by the AIA St. Louis residents of the Ville neighborhood, it was determined that the construction of an open-air marketplace would benefit the community and serve as a step in the redevelopment of this historic St. Louis neighborhood. Through community dialogue, historical review, and sustainable research, this seminar results in a collaborative sustainable design of a community marketplace for the Ville. Ongoing efforts include design development, construction documentation, and construction overseen by local professionals with potential internship possibilities for seminar participants.

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Political Science

Energy and the Environment
This course considers the major issues in these increasingly important areas of public policy. Discussions center on the importance of political processes and actors on such phenomena as global warming, endangered species, and public lands. This course emphasizes the American experience but also considers international implications.

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Tyson Research Center

Tyson Research Center — a 2,000-acre field station located 20 miles southwest of the Danforth Campus — comprises rolling hills of oak-hickory forest and small streams, ponds, old fields, and glades. The Meramec River borders Tyson to the north. Tyson provides a hub for environmental research and outdoor laboratories.

Every year, faculty members carry out dozens of research projects at Tyson with postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduates. Recent examples include work on:

• amphibian habitat choice in response to environmental risks
• ecology of invasive plant species
• food web structure of fragmented landscapes
• timber rattlesnake movement and gene flow
• ecology of vector-borne infectious diseases.

Students interested in research experiences at Tyson can receive course credit, and are encouraged to contact Washington University researchers (http://www.biology.wustl.edu/tyson/). In addition, summer fellowships are available for students interested in environmental research. For more information, contact Tyson’s director, Jon Chase, Ph.D. (jchase@wustl.edu). More information

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Brown School of Social Work

Center for Social Development
The Center for Social Development focuses domestic and international research on building assets of individuals and families so they can invest in life goals such as homes, education, and enterprise development and break the cycle of poverty. The center's work explores issues of civic engagement to ensure the people of all ages and economic levels actively participate in society. Courses include:

• Disasters and Vulnerable Populations
• Human diversity courses that discuss environmental justice
• readings in social, economic, and political environment, including environmental issues.

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Student Research Opportunities

• Tyson Research Center
  
• Environmental Internship: Internship with an environmental organization (commercial, not-for-profit, governmental, etc.) provides professional experience outside the classroom. Student must have a faculty sponsor and must file a Learning Agreement with the Career Center, the faculty sponsor, and the site supervisor. A final written project will be evaluated by the faculty sponsor at the internship’s end. Students wishing to participate complete an application from the Environmental Studies office.
  
• Undergrad research in Environmental Studies

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Student Research Projects

• Independent Study, Brookings Retrofit
• Sustainable Air Quality Class/Facilities: Campus Carbon Footprint

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