Undergraduate Minor in Energy & Water Sustainability

The Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Rice offers undergraduate students from any department the opportunity to select a minor in energy and water sustainability. Sustainable development is a societal goal related to meeting the needs of today’s society in a manner that does not prevent future generations from meeting their needs. As such, it requires us to explore the manner in which our needs are met while establishing intra-generational equity concepts. As such, sustainable development challenges our existing ways of thinking and requires alternative solutions and approaches for the future.

Sustainable development requires the integration of economic, environmental and social thinking. Certain basic needs such as energy and water supplies are worthy of specific focus due to their relative importance. For example, carbon management concepts will likely drive energy policies over the coming decades, directly impacting most aspects of energy delivery and usage in society. Similarly, the long-term viability of existing water use and settlement patterns must be reconsidered in light of current and future availability, given alterations in climate patterns and competing demands for this limited resource. If nothing else, the efficiency of our usage will be a key consideration in the future.

Students choosing this minor may choose to specialize in either energy or water or may choose to focus on other aspects of sustainability. Students completing this minor in sustainability will be better prepared for global society that is attempting to understand while at the same time addressing the challenge of meeting the basic needs of an expanding population in light of a clearer realization of natural resource limitations. Thus, the flow of materials and energy becomes a focal point of sustainability thinking.

This EWS minor is focused on learning to think and converse about sustainability. The introductory course in sustainable design is intended to provide basic information on the fusion of economic, environmental and social considerations in a problem-solving, design-oriented classroom. Additional courses will focus upon economic tools as well as engineering analytical tools. Higher-level courses are designed to address practical problem-solving as well as understanding policy issues. The goal of this minor is to educate students to be able to think through energy and water issues and solutions with a view toward the long-term sustainability of human settlements and the Earth.

Core courses: 
    CEVE/ENGI 302 Sustainable Design (3 credits; course to be developed; see Appendix A) 
    CEVE 307 Energy and the Environment 
    CEVE 322/ENGI 303 Engineering Economics or 
    ECON 480 Environmental Economics (requires ECON 211 or 370 or permission)
    CEVE 499 Special Topics – Practicum (1 credit )
    Electives: three courses from the list below, with no more than two drawn from any one area.

Energy elective courses (choose up to two):     ECON 437 Energy Economics (pre-requisite: ECON 370) 
    ESCI 415 Economic Geology – Petroleum 
    ESCI 417 Petroleum Industry Economics and Management 
    ESCI 420 Modern Exploration Technology (pre-requisite: ESCI 442) 
    SOCI 367 Environmental Sociology

Water elective courses (choose up to two):     CEVE 203 Principles of Environmental Engineering 
    CEVE 314 Sustainable Water Purification for Developing World 
    CEVE 412 Hydrology and Watershed Analysis 
    CEVE 415 Water Resources Planning 
    CEVE 418 Groundwater Hydrology and Contamination

Sustainability elective courses (choose up to two):     ARCH 313 Case Studies in Sustainable Design 
    BIOE/CEVE 409 Integrated Approaches to Sustainable Development 
    BIOS 323 Conservation Biology 
    BIOS 325 Ecology 
    CHBE 281 Engineering Sustainable Communities 
    CEVE 306 Global Environmental Law and Sustainable Development. 
    CEVE 315 Sustainable Technologies for Developing Countries 
    CEVE 406 Intro to Environmental Law 
    CEVE 492 Reliability of Complex Urban Systems 
    ENST 302 Sustainability: Rice Into the Future 
    ESCI 513 Soil Science and Sustainability 
    STAT 485 Quantitative Environmental Decision Making (requires STAT 305 & 385) 
    POLI 441 Common Property Resources 
    POLI 331 Environmental Politics and Policy 
    POLI 432 Urban Politics