Conservation Biology Major Requirements

  1. Office & Department Directory
  2. Conservation Biology
  3. Conservation Biology Major Requirements

Note that students majoring in Conservation Biology may not also double-major or minor in Biology or in the Biochemistry, Biomedical Sciences, Neuroscience, Biology-Physics, Biology–Environmental Studies combined major. First-year students considering a Conservation Biology major should seek early advisement from a conservation biology faculty member and should begin the introductory courses required for the major in the first year.

More information on this multidisciplinary major can be found at http://www.stlawu.edu/academics/programs/conservation-biology

Major Requirements

Conservation Biology majors must complete a predetermined set of courses (outlined below) and are strongly encouraged to complete some study outside of northeastern North America through study abroad, study at a biological field station, or through participation in certain courses with a travel component. Students should consult with a Conservation Biology faculty member in planning how to complete this expectation.

Required Courses

Full course descriptions can be found by visiting the Catalog section for the sponsoring department.

I. Core Courses

Students must take all of the following courses:

  • BIOL 101 and 102. General Biology

  • BIOL 245. Genetics or BIOL 343 Evolution

  • BIOL 221. General Ecology

  • BIOL 440. Conservation Biology (seniors only)

II. Allied Science or Math Courses

Students must take one of the following options:

A.  GEOL 103. Dynamic Earth and  GEOL 104. Evolving Earth. (both with lab)

B.   CHEM 103 and CHEM 104. General Chemistry (both with lab)

C.   Any two of the following four:

  • STAT 113. Applied Statistics
  • STAT 213. Applied Regression Analysis
  • MATH 135. Calculus I
  • MATH 136. Calculus II

D.  STAT 113. Applied Statistics and GS 233. GIS (with lab)

E.   CS 140. Intro to Computer Programming and CS 219. Techniques of Computer Science

III. Electives

Students completing the major must take at least one advanced ecology elective, two social science electives from different departments, and one global perspectives elective. In addition, students must fulfill a biodiversity requirement by taking five courses from offerings in ecology and organismal diversity.  To fulfill the biodiversity requirement, students should take a minimum of two organismal diversity courses.  The other courses can be any courses from the Advanced Ecology or Organismal Diversity categories, or an Upper-level elective in Biology Department. Only one organismal diversity course focusing on vertebrate animals may be counted toward completing the requirements for the major. Approved courses are listed below. Students may petition the major coordinator to have other courses fulfill these electives. Students may count up to two courses taken while abroad toward the requirements for the major.

The following fulfill the Advanced Ecology elective:

  • BIOL 330. Ecology of Lakes and Rivers (with lab)
  • BIOL 335. Winter Ecology (with lab)
  • BIOL 360. Marine Ecology
  • BIOL 380. Tropical Ecology
  • And certain special topics courses.

The following fulfill the Social Science electives. Students must take two from different departments.

  • GS 101. Intro GS I:Political Economy 
  • ENVS 101. Environmental Studies
  • GOVT 103. Intro to American Politics
  • GOVT 105. Comparative Politics
  • GOVT 108. Intro International Relations

Organismal Diversity courses (only one about vertebrates will count toward the major requirement):

  • BIOL 209. Anthropods and Other Invertebrates
  • BIOL 215. Fundamentals of Animal Diversity (with lab)
  • BIOL 218. Ornithology (with lab)
  • BIOL 224. Biology of Plants (with lab)
  • BIOL 227. Mammalogy (with lab)
  • BIOL 231. Microbiology (with lab)
  • BIOL 258. Ethnobotany (with lab)
  • BIOL 319. Plant Systematics (with lab)
  • BIOL 325. Mycology (with lab)
  • GEOL 206. Paleontology
  • GEOL 217. Dinosaurs

Other Upper-level electives:

  • BIOL 230. Food from the Sea (with lab)
  • BIOL 242. Biodiversity Conservation and Management  in East Africa (Kenya Semester Program)
  • ENVS 369. Ecological Restoration
  • ENVS 370. Global Amphibian Decline
  • ENVS 371. Landscape Ecology
  • GEOL 340. Conservation Paleobiology
  • And certain special topics courses.

The following fulfill the Global Perspectives elective. Students must take one:

  • AFS 337. Cultural, Environment and Development in East Africa (Kenya Semester Program)
  • ANTH 102. Cultural Anthropology
  • ANTH 251. Humans and Other Animals
  • ANTH 425. Environmental Conservation in Africa
  • ECON 228. African Economies
  • ECON 234. Comparative Economics
  • ECON 236. Globalization Issues: Equity, the Environment and Economic Growth
  • ECON 308. Environmental Economics
  • ECON 336. Economic Development
  • ECON 384. Natural Resource Economics
  • ENVS 261. Sustainable Agriculture
  • ENVS 263. Global Change and Sustainability
  • GS 259. Global-local Environmentalisms
  • GS 301. Theories of Global Political Economy

  • GS 324. Global Public Goods: Exploring Solutions for the 21st Century

  • GS 365. Rethinking Population, Health and Environment

  • PHIL 310. Philosophy of the Environment

  • SOC 253. Race, Class and Environmental Justice
  • SOC 465. Environmental Sociology

Please see the Conservation Biology website for additional courses that will fulfill the Global Perspectives elective. Students may also work with their advisor to petition for other courses to fulfill the global perspectives this elective.

Students are encouraged to consider taking at least one semester of independent research with a faculty member and to study a foreign language, but doing so is not a requirement of the major.

Independent Research

Students who wish to conduct independent research may do so by taking customized research methods courses (BIOL 381 and 382), or as seniors, by taking BIOL 468 and 469 (SYE: Tutorial Research) and BIOL 489 and 490 (SYE: Experimental Research). Students must discuss possible projects with members of the biology faculty.

Honors

To graduate with honors in Conservation Biology, a student must have a 3.5 major GPA and must satisfactorily complete a 2-unit, year-long honors research project. Students conducting honors projects enroll in 1.0 unit of independent research (BIOL 489) during the fall and 1.0 unit of honors research (BIOL 499) in the spring of the senior year. The project is supervised and finally approved by an honors committee comprised of the project advisor and two other faculty members. Students wishing to conduct an honors project should consult with potential project advisors by the end of the junior year.