Course Overview

Based within the purpose-built Lancaster Environment Centre, you'll have access to the latest knowledge and teaching from world-class experts, including volcanologists, geophysicists, atmospheric scientists, hydrologists and environmental modellers.

Combining the fundamental sciences with physical geography and geology, our Earth and Environmental Science degree gives you an unprecedented breadth of learning. You'll examine the geological processes that underpin our planet before linking these to human impacts on the land, atmosphere and oceans.

In your first year, your studies will include environmental processes, systems and issues; geological, biogeochemical and hydrological processes and an Introduction to Environmental Chemistry.

In your second year, you will study a range of subjects and develop a strong set of skills as well as undertaking environmental and geological field courses. Students on our Study Abroad course will spend their second year at a university in North America, Australasia or Iceland.

In your final year, you will complete your dissertation with Employability Skills or a work placement and choose from diverse options such as Air Pollution and Climate, Volcanic Processes Field Course and Water Resource Management.

Without the experience I gained at Lancaster I would never have been able to reach the level I'm at now.

Career opportunities

Wherever an industry affects the environment, our graduates are valued. In the public sector, opportunities exist from research and regulatory bodies like the Environment Agency, through to the armed forces. Meanwhile, private sector industries, including civil engineering, environmental consultancy, mining and construction, demand the skills of Lancaster's high-calibre graduates.

The breadth of this degree, plus transferable skills in quantitative analysis, ensures that Lancaster's Earth and Environmental Scientists have a wide variety of career options.

Many graduates take their learning to MSc or PhD level to enhance their specialist knowledge and skills. Recent graduates, for example, have chosen to study Exploration Geophysics.