We are STEM environmental scientists who study how the Earth works as a planet, what its history has been, and how this knowledge can be put to good use.
Learn More About UsUnderstanding Earth as a Coherent System
As curiosity-driven STEM scientists, we combine outdoor field work, laboratory analysis, and simulation modeling to come up with better answers for planetary interaction than possible from geology, biology, anthropology, climatology, and marine science alone.
As ethically-motivated environmental scientists, we help meet the human challenges of obtaining natural resources, mitigating natural hazards, and managing habitats, including those of humans. We overlap with the applied disciplines of engineering, agriculture, natural resources, law, public health, and business.
We examine planet Earth holistically by focusing on the interactions between its solids, liquids, gasses, organisms, and human activities in terrestrial, marine, and atmospheric settings.
We care about beautiful things like minerals, waters, landscapes, climates, ecosystems, rocks, fossils, glaciers, rivers, mountains, coasts, oceans, soils, sediments, volcanoes, and human creations. They help us answer fundamental questions about the origin, habitability, and future of our planet and its neighbors.
The Department of Earth Sciences offers B.A. and B.S. degrees with Earth, Environment, and Atmosphere tracks as well as a Minor, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. Please explore the website to learn more about our department!
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Upcoming Events
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Dec
5
GSCU Colloquium - Hanson Nyantakyi-Frimpong 3:30pm
GSCU Colloquium - Hanson Nyantakyi-Frimpong
Thursday, December 5th, 2024
03:30 PM
Austin Building
From hatchet to seed: Grassroots-led intersectional feminist political ecology for transforming tree-based climate action
Hanson Nyantakyi-Frimpong
Department of Geography & the Environment, University of Denver
Abstract
Since its inception over four decades ago, a major shortcoming of political ecology has been its excessive focus on criticisms while offering few direct solutions. Political ecology research that aims at incisive criticism is often called a ‘hatchet,’ while work focusing directly on nurturing possibilities for social change is called ‘seed work.’ Thus far, how to do political ecology seed work has received relatively scant attention in the geographic literature. In this talk, I will highlight one potential way of doing seed work using a grassroots-led intersectional feminist political ecology approach. Drawing empirical material from a shade-grown cocoa and carbon offset project in West Africa, I will demonstrate the power and transformative nature of seed work. I will further reflect on the difficulty of doing political ecology seed work and argue that although it can be time-consuming and stressful, it is needed now more than ever to support ongoing struggles against social and environmental injustices. In addition to grassroots-led action research, this talk will highlight other approaches through which political ecologists have engaged in seed work and from which the field’s newcomers and current practitioners can learn from.
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Mar
6
Teale Lecture: Women’s Center Speaker 4:00pm
Teale Lecture: Women’s Center Speaker
Thursday, March 6th, 2025
04:00 PM - 05:00 PM
The Dodd Center for Human Rights
- 03/06/25 - Women’s Center Collaboration
- This is an Honors Event. See tags below for category information. #UHLevent10936
Contact Information:
Gregory Anderson, Gregory.Anderson@uconn.edu;
Kathleen Segerson, Kathleen.Segerson@uconn.edu;
or Michael Willig, Michael.Willig@uconn.edu More
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