Bachelor of Science in Forest Ecology and Management

at University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) - Prince George Campus Canada

Students pursuing a BSc in Conservation Science and Practice focus on understanding and addressing the contemporary challenges facing the sustainable use and conservation of our environment. Navigating these challenges requires a strong scientific foundation, including the necessary appreciation for both the natural and human dimensions of conservation and management. This degree equips students with the knowledge to enter a solutions-based career that actively contributes to solving today’s conservation and management problems. Our goal is to provide students with the philosophical foundation, scientific theory, and technical skills to address the challenge of maintaining the functioning of ecosystems across developed, developing, and still-wild landscapes.

The BSc in Conservation Science and Practice allows students to pursue one of two majors:

•  Wildland Conservation and Recreation
• Landscape Conservation and Management

The major in Wildland Conservation and Recreation focuses on portions of the landscape where conservation values, including recreation and aesthetic values, are the priority land-use activities, and where these activities intersect with other values, priorities, and uses. Topics of study include: the promotion of and advocacy for conservation; integrated management of legally designated parks and protected areas; conservation area design; and human activities across these areas, including recreation, ecotourism and the associated positive and negative impacts on ecological integrity. Students develop the skills necessary to identify, plan, monitor, and manage conservation values within the parks, recreation and tourism sectors.

As an environmental engineer, you can serve society by ensuring we all have clean air, water and soil, and by creating sustainable solutions to today’s critical environmental questions.

This program prepares you for important employment opportunities where your technical expertise and problem-solving skills as an engineer are required, in addition to your strong awareness and understanding of environmental issues and a passion to improve the communities you live in.

Program Details
You will take design courses that begin in your first year, giving you the chance to engage your creative thinking. Hone your problem-solving skills as you continue to take design courses in every year of the program. 

During the first two years, build a foundation in basic sciences, engineering tools and environmental issues. In the final two years, you will develop an in-depth knowledge of environmental engineering.

Along with developing a solid background in environmental engineering, you will also gain strong communication skills and the ability to work across various disciplines including resource-based industries, government departments, research organizations, and environmental engineering consulting.

Example projects that an environmental engineering graduate can work on include the following:

• Designing and building processes to bring clean drinking water to northern communities 
• Designing and building processes to treat municipal or industrial wastewater
• Designing and building processes to recover energy from municipal and industrial waste 
• Developing methods to clean contaminated soil
• Developing flood control plans
• Mapping groundwater flow and contaminant transport in subsurface environments

Study the natural world at its most fundamental level. Learn about physics, the science upon which all other sciences and technologies are based. Our degree opens the door to future study and career opportunities in such fields as education, scientific research, industry, medical technology, and environmental studies.

Program Details
In the first two years, you will take courses in:

• Mechanics, waves, thermal physics, electricity and magnetism
• Modern physics including relativity and quantum theory and their applications
• Mathematics and computer programming

Build on that foundation in your third and fourth years with courses in:

• Quantum mechanics
• Electromagnetic theory and radiation
• Electronics 
• Optics
• Statistical mechanics
• Nuclear and particle physics 
• Condensed matter physics 
• Special-topics courses 
• Research-oriented, project-type courses

The Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Geography degree provides a broad background on the fundamentals of physical geography (climate, snow and ice, water, soils, ecosystems). It provides you with specialized expertise in geospatial analysis, geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, statistics, and field measurement methods that are critical skills for professional geoscientists and environmental consultants.

Computer Science
The Computer Science program gives students a thorough exposure to basic areas like computer architecture, programming languages and methodology, algorithms and data structures, systems programming, operating systems and networking, knowledge-based and database systems, software engineering, and theory. The student will develop the advanced practical computing and problem-solving skills required for professional work in modern industry, based on a strong conceptual foundation and on insights into the nature of this rapidly changing field. Each student will use advanced development tools, and will be encouraged to approach problem-solving from a multidisciplinary point of view.

Physics
Physics is the study of nature at its most fundamental level. As such, it is the science upon which all other sciences and technologies are based. Because it is so basic, a major in physics is ideal preparation, not only for further study in physics, but also for advanced study in such diverse fields as biophysics, medicine, astrophysics, chemical physics, engineering, meteorology, and computer science.

Economics
Economics as a discipline is constructed around the need to identify agents in the economy and analyze their interactions. As such it is based upon deriving generalizations by identifying behavioural rules and examining causal relationships between economic variables. The emphasis on examining causal relationships is a distinguishing feature of economics and forms an important part of its claim to be a social science. As well as addressing these central concerns, the Department of Economics recognizes the interaction between the economy and other broader social, political, cultural and technological forces. The Department therefore places special emphasis on courses that analyze institutions, facilitate comparative studies, encourage a historical approach, and recognize the pervasiveness of technological change.

Mathematics
An important feature of the mathematics degree program is the early emphasis on the development of abstract reasoning and the relation of the abstract to the concrete. The degree requirements have been chosen so as to provide students with a broad background in mathematics while still leaving them room to pursue their individual interests.

The Bachelor of Health Sciences degree is a four-year program consisting of a range of courses that relate directly to the science of health, in the recognition that health is a complex entity defying a simple explanation or a single disciplinary perspective.  The courses identified within the School of Health Sciences offer learning opportunities from a variety of disciplines, including the life sciences, social sciences, behavioural sciences, and ethics and law, to enable students to develop a body of knowledge and understanding relating to the dimensions of health.  Some of these courses are considered to be ‘core’ and therefore central to the basic understandings of health, while others offer the student opportunities to learn about a specific health perspective that is focused on one of three Majors:

1. Biomedical Studies,
2. Community and Population Health-Environmental Health, or,
3. Community and Population Health-Aboriginal and Rural Health.

Graduation from either of the Community and Population Health Majors enables students to embark on careers or graduate programs related to health care management, administration, information systems or public health.

Students pursuing the Biomedical Studies Major are required to complete a set of courses that enables them to be prepared for application to professional programs such as medicine, nursing, pharmacy, occupational therapy, dentistry, speech pathology or physiotherapy.  This major provides a foundational, multidisciplinary knowledge base that is focused on the natural,  physical, and social sciences, and includes population health and research methodology. Students interested in other fields requiring extensive biomedical laboratory skills may enroll in the degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (BCMB).

Learn to be an effective agent of environmental, sustainability and social innovation as you promote the mitigation of, and/or adaptation to, environmental and sustainability challenges. A degree in Environmental and Sustainability Studies leads to a rewarding career in sectors such as government, Indigenous government and agencies, the non-profit sector, law (with additional training), international development, environmental consulting, environmental health and more.

Program Details
Study the natural environment, societal challenges and sustainable solutions to environmental and sustainability challenges, surrounded by the spectacular natural environment of UNBC.

Explore the social science and humanities perspective on environmental and sustainability issues. Study the concepts of environmental citizenship, societal relationships with ecology, sustainability initiatives such as carbon management and energy, global perspectives and more. 

Canada's North is roughly 75% of the country's land mass. Despite the North's geographic significance, UNBC is one of only a few universities in Canada to have a major in Northern Studies. This program is integral to the overall mandate of UNBC and exposes students to myriad issues facing northern BC and northern regions around the world. This program draws upon the northern expertise of faculty from a wide array of programs. Students will gain an understanding of the whole North - its geography, peoples, and issues.Over the past few decades, the north has become an area of growing significance. At the centre of northern issues is non-renewable resource development, including mining, oil and gas and forestry. Related socio-economic and cultural issues, such as competing land use (i.e. recreation, protected areas), First Nations land claims, and rural infrastructure development (i.e. transportation, services), and renewable resource development are also important to developing the north. These issues have in turn led to unique opportunities to discover what the North means to the individual, the nation and world as a whole.

This program addresses both project-level and large-scale environmental planning issues that occur in developments that impact the natural environment. 

Learn about provincial land use planning, environmental assessment, watershed planning and integrated resource management. 

The geographic and cultural context of Prince George and northern British Columbia provides you with a living laboratory to explore concepts, exchange ideas and discover solutions. Simply by living in the region, your life experiences will inform what and how you learn about the lives of people living in northern communities and First Nations, the impacts of resource extraction on the landscape and these people, and the need for new approaches to addressing long-standing social and environmental issues.

In addition to classes offered through the School of Environmental Planning, you will develop an interdisciplinary understanding of the world we live in through courses in biology, geography, environmental science, First Nations studies, forestry, economics, international studies, and outdoor recreation and tourism management.