EES Gateway Courses

EES has a long tradition of offering quality science education to non-majors. It is important that future citizens and leaders in business and society know something about science and the nature of scientific knowledge. We believe that natural resources like fossil fuels, water, and biodiversity, and issues related to the environment like energy or global change will be among the most pressing issues facing our lives in the future. In response, we have built our entire curriculum atop a gateway sequence that offers students modest-enrollment, topical classes that can help students find a rewarding way to meet science requirements or explore the possibility of an EES major or minor.

The College of Arts and Science requires its students to take a total of eight credits from the selection of courses designated as natural sciences. One of the courses must involve a laboratory. Our curriculum has been designed to help students meet these requirements with flexiblity.

Our introductory-level "Gateway" courses cover a broad range of interesting topics within ecology, geology, and environmental sciences. All of these courses are offered for three (3) credits, and have Natural Science (NS) designation. In parallel with these offerings, we offer a one-credit laboratory course (EES 22) and a one-credit discussion course (EES 004) in both spring and fall semesters, with numerous sections.  CAS students can meet College distribution requirements in science by taking any introductory-level course and pairing it with the lab and/or the discussion course as required. This permits students to meet the 8-credit requirement with flexibility and ease. Note that the standalone lab also fulfills the CAS lab-science requirement.

Gateway courses count towards our minor, but not the EES major.

Important things to remember are (1) that most of these courses will be capped to provide a better classroom experience (so early registration is advisable), and (2) the lab and discussion course each require a gateway course as a pre-requisite or co-requisite (we'd recommended doing them as co-reqs).

Consider a minor: you're almost there!

Note also if you take all your natural science courses in EES, you will be pretty far towards a minor in EES as well. Check out the EES minor!