Curriculum Environmental Sciences
The environmental sciences program covers six semesters and begins, like all programs at Leuphana University, with the Leuphana Semester, which all students complete together. Specialization in the major and a minor begins in the second semester. The major forms the main field of concentration in the degree’s subject area. The minor complements this concentration with a second field of knowledge. In addition to the disciplines of the major and minor, all students complete from the second semester onwards the interdisciplinarily organized comprehensive studies program.
Leuphana’s environmental sciences major is not organized one-sidely, but rather offers both the humanist as well as the natural science perspective. In the course of the program, students choose their own concentration.
In the 2nd and 3rd semesters, all students acquire the academic and methodological foundations of the natural sciences and humanities in equal parts. Ecological and environmental topics are included herein, the subject of climate change as well as methods of environmental communication, management and guidance.
Students start their specialization in the fourth semester. Initially, students choose from 3 humanities and 3 natural sciences, each one module.
In the 5th semester, students decide whether to move towards the humanities of the natural sciences to expand their studies and at the beginning of the fifth semester they select one of the two concentrations. In tandem, students examine ethics as well as the theoretical questions of transdisciplinarity.
The Bachelor essay in the 6th semester (also called the thesis) takes nine weeks and rounds out the environmental sciences degree program. Here students show that they can apply the foundations and methodologies, which they have learned to a topic of their own, in order to demonstrate that they can investigate a contemporary question in an academically sound manner.
Students who major in Environmental Sciences can make a selection from the following required modules:
- Foundations of Environmental Chemistry
- Foundations of the EcologyNatural Science Foundations of Climate Change
- Introduction to Sustainability Communication
- Mathematical and Statistical Foundations
- Inter- and Transdisciplinary Foundations
- Sustainable Development and Maintenance
- Sustainable Development and Management
- Ethics and Transdisciplinarity
- Transdisciplinary Project
In the 4th semester, students choose one module in the humanities and one in the natural sciences, in which the follow topics are offered:
Humanities:
- Communication and Information
- Governance and Planning
- Management
Natural Sciences
- Chemistry and Resources
- Ecology
- Global Change Sciences
In the 5th semester, students decide to specialize either in the humanities or the natural sciences, and thus choose 2 specialized modules from the topics listed above.
The Bachelor degree comes to a conclusion with the Bachelor thesis (or essay). As a rule, the thesis is written in the sixth semester. In this final thesis students can demonstrate that they are able to investigate on a question, within in an assigned period of nine weeks, using the academic methods of their discipline. Work on the Bachelor essay is coordinated with the sixth-semester module “Colloquium and Lectures.”
The Bachelor thesis concludes with an oral defense in a colloquium of evaluators. The final grade is a combination of the grade for the final essay and the grade for the colloquium
You can find further information about the Bachelor thesis in the download section of this page as well as in the general examination guidelines (RPO, § 18). The guidelines can be found on the home page of the examination office.