Environmental scientists come from a broad range of educational backgrounds because it takes people from many scientific disciplines to figure out how to clean up a contaminated area. To become an environmental scientist, you should take as much math, science, and communication in high school as possible. Important areas to study are chemistry, physics, biology, trigonometry, algebra and calculus. In college, your undergraduate education should be broad and include some courses in many different sciences including geology, geography, computer science, engineering, technical writing, statistics, calculus, biological sciences, chemistry, and physics. A graduate degree is strongly recommended for environmental scientists, and during graduate studies is the time to choose a discipline to specialize in.
Environmental scientists work in both the private and public sectors.
In the private sector there are consulting firms that contract with both industry and government to conduct environmental investigations and cleanup. Some private firms specialize in areas such as the cleanup of leaking underground storage tanks or cleaning up groundwater that is contaminated. The regulators watch over industry and contractors to make sure all their work is in compliance with laws and regulations. Other federal agencies, such as the Department of Energy or Department of Defense hire environmental scientists to mange the cleanup of con-tamination on their property. An environmental scientist, Kelly Bitner, is mapping the geographic formations in Utah.