If you like hands-on learning, the environmental studies major at Dordt College may be the place for you. Our environmental studies students recently designed a restoration plan for a wetland ecosystem on Dordt’s campus, and incoming students will have the opportunity to learn from and help manage this wetland area and the surrounding uplands.

Field trips are an integral part of Dordt’s environmental studies courses, with visits to national wildlife refuges, windfarms, fossil beds, and many other sites.

You can also include off-campus study in your program. Many students attend the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies during summers, where they join Christian students and instructors from other Christian colleges in hands-on study of forests, streams, marine organisms, and other parts of God’s world. Au Sable currently offers course and field work in Michigan, Washington state, Florida, East Africa, and South India.

Other off-campus program options available to students are the Latin American Studies Program in Costa Rica, the Chicago Semester Program, the American Studies Program in Washington, D.C., and the Creation Care Studies Program in Belize.

Internships are an excellent opportunity for you to broaden your experience and background. Dordt has a very good track record of placing students in programs with great learning opportunities: the U.S. Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy, the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, and Oklahoma State University, to name a few.

The Environmental Studies Department and Dordt College Career Services maintain current files of many available summer internship opportunities.

Toward the end of your time at Dordt, you will have the opportunity to enroll in a directed research course, allowing you to apply your accumulated knowledge and skills in an individualized project. You will also participate in a “Seminar on Creation Stewardship” course, which challenges junior and senior students to put the principles and knowledge they have learned into practice in a particular place. The ultimate goal is for you to implement God’s call to care for creation in your life and career.