Rooted in perspective
Become a dynamic environmental leader equipped to confront modern conservation challenges
FLC’s Environmental Conservation & Management program puts you in the field where the mountains greet the desert southwest and the snowmelt meets the rivers. With the outdoors as your classroom, you’ll develop practical skills while studying climate change, food systems, traditional ecological knowledge, natural resource management, environmental justice, water conservation, public policy, and more.
"Our department will have you devising solutions to today’s most pressing problems. Tackle environmental injustice, climate change, and more through collaborative work with peers and field-based study."
You’ll develop practical skills and a broad understanding through interdisciplinary course study and access to the boundless natural laboratory and cultural landscapes of Colorado’s forests, mountains, high desert, rivers, and farms.
Our location in the American Southwest's Four Corners region—a crossroads of deserts, canyon lands, and mountains—is an ideal setting for studying issues such as energy production, local farming, water conservation, natural resource and public land management, public policy, land use, urban planning, and more. Also, our proximity to four Native American nations offers significant opportunities to study environmental issues on tribal lands.
Our small classes and our strength in field-based, experiential education mean you get an individualized education from our expert faculty and exposure to environmental professionals in a variety of settings. Because our faculty's focus is on teaching, they work closely with their students, staying involved in their students' progress, and tailoring their assistance to each learner's needs.
Students have the option to conduct a one-or two-semester senior capstone project using field data collection or literature review. For field-based research, you'll utilize methodologies from the social, natural, or interdisciplinary sciences (e.g., ethnographic interviews, surveys, cost-benefit analysis, ecological field data collection, GIS, etc.). Research based in literature review emphasizes integrative work drawing together theory and research. The final senior thesis project is comprised of a paper, research poster, and oral presentation.
Environmental Conservation & Management internship
ENVS 410: Students register for this course under an Environmental Conservation & Management faculty member, and will complete 150 hours of work for an organization. All internships must be approved.
Our students have held internships locally and afar, from downtown Durango to Uganda, gaining hands-on experience with conservation organizations, a variety of businesses, and government agencies at the city, county, state, tribal and federal levels. Interns work in environmental education, green technology, sustainable agriculture, wildlife and plant monitoring, impact assessment, trail maintenance and restoration projects, public land and natural resource management, and sustainable landscaping.
Before you enroll in your internship course, ENVS 410, you must:
Consult with Career Services and the department to see which internships may be available.
Please note: We offer internships at the Environmental Center exclusively during the Spring semester.
The road ahead
Our complex world calls for dynamic leaders capable of integrating and applying knowledge from multiple perspectives. Some of those leaders boast the profound backbone of an Environmental Conservation & Management degree.
Imagine yourself as a: