UTC Akademic Education Site

Posts Tagged ‘environment’

The world is changing faster now than at any time since the last ice-age 10,000 years ago and the major cause of that change is man. To allow the changes to continue unchecked is reckless at the least. Monitoring those changes and being able to convince others that we have to do or not do activities that affect the environment will take well qualified people with the relevant environmental science degree.

It has often been said that the education offered in colleges and universities are a direct response to the job market and the trends therein. If this is so then the future for professionals with an environmental science degree could not be much brighter.

After the industrial and the informational age, we are quickly entering the environmental age, where the environment and its characteristics are of paramount importance.

Never before, as a society, have we paid real attention to the environment and many would argue we still do not pay enough attention. Continuous exploitation of the earths natural resources and constant generation of heat and waste products have caused significant damage to the environment.

We live in an age where knowing, understanding and adapting to the environment is no longer a choice – it is the only way ahead. This age demands qualified professionals, especially those with professional environmental science degrees.

A number of allied degrees find their place alongside conventional environmental science degrees. Big business has, for a long time, been required to comply with safety and industrial security requirements. In industries like biotechnology, due to the nature of the products, there are numerous opportunities for disaster.

Disaster management and hazardous material management are fields of study that are very much in demand by today’s high technology industries. While often these studies are not comprehensive enough to be offered as science degrees by themselves, these courses are more often than not partnered with environmental science degrees as part of a package deal.

For the environmental science degree student, it can be an advantage. While pursuing their main course of study, they can get qualifications in a number of allied fields. This makes them thorough professionals and capable of entering a wide range of industries when they graduate with their environmental science degree.

As a result of the long-standing lobbying activities, the United States is home to some of the worlds largest and best funded environmental groups and many professionals, working for these groups, have environmental science degrees.

Jobs exist with government bodies, lobbying positions with political groups and corporate organizations, research positions with foundations and other research organizations. More opportunities exist in the environmental safety departments of leading oil majors and even faculty positions at colleges offering environmental science degrees. They all offer lucrative positions that professionals with an environmental science degree can hope to secure.

An environmental science degree does not deal with environmental topics alone. Due to the very nature of their work, professionals who acquire an environmental science degree need to be equipped with allied subjects like compliance, law, criminal justice, and public communication.
Read the rest of this entry »

In the ongoing energy debate, biomass energy is getting a lot of play among politicians. To understand the concept, it first helps to understand the bio pyramid.

Bio Pyramid

All of the organisms in the world follow orders of classification. Whether you choose to put them into groups of plants and animals, herbivores and carnivores, or any other of the many different types of classification systems, organisms can be put into many groups in order to understand their relationship to one another. One way to classify organisms is to put them into their order, or hierarchy, in the food chain. In this way, we can see how animals and other organisms relate to each other based on what they consume.

There are several different ways to look at the food chain, and one important and useful tool in this area is the bio pyramid. A bio pyramid is a graphical chart that shows the comparative mass of the consumers to the producers in the food chain. This can be helpful in determining how energy is transferred to the top levels of the pyramid from the bottom levels.
Read the rest of this entry »

Each summer, I visit the Chequamagon National Forest in Wisconsin. An amazingly beautiful and lush forest, this place is my sanctuary. I stay at a low-key resort, in a cabin overlooking Lake Namekagon. It’s a breath of fresh air – quite literally – to spend two weeks each year at this place, away from bustling streets and busy people. It’s like a different world.

Or, at least, it was. I had a very different experience this past July. Upon entering our cabin, my fiance and I were greeted by a large television, equipped with Direct TV. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a TV-lover, through and through. There was, however, something strange about having to look around the television to see the lake.

We overlooked this; after all, we don’t own the cabin. Some resort-goers might crave 500 channels before they crave hiking and fishing. Convinced that the TV (both the sight of it and the temptation to watch it) would put a damper on things, we went out on the water.

As I started the old, rented pontoon boat, something occured to me. We were no better than the TLC, MTV, and MSNBC addicts. Yes, our boat was used for the enjoyment of the outdoors; however, it left a muddy, green wake behind it. Yes, we came to the resort to get away from everyday conveniences and to surround ourselves with nature, but we were staying in a cabin – not a tent or a sleeping bag. We cooked our breakfast every morning on a fairly modern stove, we drank coffee made in a Bunn coffeemaker, and we turned on the electric heat if the cabin got too cold. It turns out we weren’t roughing it; we were faking it.

Since this realization, I’ve been troubled. I don’t understand where our appreciation for nature went. I don’t understand how misguided travelers – myself included – consider themselves to be experiencing nature, when really all we’re doing is glancing at it between commercials. Granted, everyone experiences nature in a different way. For some, glancing at it through a window – or on a TV screen – might be enough.

I’m concerned, though, that by accepting this as a legitimate way to experience nature, we are missing something. Or, perhaps, we are missing everything. On a basic level, there is something satisfying about feeling a different kind of air on your skin, and about feeling the crunch of leaves and dirt beneath your feet. Where city lights don’t corrupt the night sky, we can see stars in a new way, and the level of darkness is foreign and exciting.
Read the rest of this entry »