Anthropology is the study of humans and the human experience in the context of how biological, ecological, and cultural systems interact with each other. Anthropology is important environmentally because it helps societies and cultures to understand who they are, how they came to be that way, and where they may go in the future. Environmental Anthropology combines expertise in ecology with an understanding of the social and cultural dynamics of communities affected by policy decisions. These professionals are essential in dealing with environmental issues because cultural attitudes toward the environment are so diverse, and an understanding of cultural perspective is an essential starting point for solving global and even regional environmental problems. Anthropology students can expect an interdisciplinary curriculum, including environmental sciences, psychology, sociology, biology, and medicine.
Students learn how to study people and how communities and organizations work.
Graduate students learn in more specialized fields how to combine these perspectives and skills to solve problems. The subject matter is broad, so undergraduates can be part of a broad liberal arts background in medicine, government, business, and law. Medical Anthropology Osteology Foreign Languages Geographic Information Systems Human Origins and Prehistory Social and Cultural Behavior Culture Areas and Ethnic Groups Human Variation Human Ecology Urban Anthropology Ethnography Linguistics Medical Anthropology Human Growth and Development Museum Methods Environmental Anthopolgy is not a common major or emphasis at the undergraduate or graduate level, but programs do exist - at the very least, many Anthropolgy programs offer courses in Environmental Anthopology. Please use the search engine on our home page to identify some of these universities. Positions are also commonly available in academia and in the nonprofit sector, where identification of historically significant cultural areas can often lead to conservation of natural resources.