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The built environment plays an integral role in meeting society’s most basic needs of shelter, security, mobility, community, and water & waste treatment, but it also contributes significantly to the sustainability challenges of climate change, pollution, resource consumption, and land use. As society and government policy increase pressure to reduce the environmental impacts of our everyday activities, individuals must increasingly understand how the built environment they design and maintain fits into the complex environmental and human system in which we live. The minor provides a guiding framework for educating individuals who will design and maintain our future built environment in the challenges and potential solutions for improved sustainability.

The minor is designed to develop students' awareness in the three core themes of sustainability: Engineering & Science, Social Context, and Policy & Economics. The aim is both to foster the social context of engineering and to attract students from a range of departments and programs across campus to grow trans-disciplinary interactions. Students are required to take ECI 123, as well as electives as specified in the three core themes.

The minor is designed to attract students from a range of departments and programs across campus, including, Environmental Science & Policy, Plant Sciences, Landscape Architecture, Design, Engineering, Community & Regional Development, Anthropology, Agriculture & Resource Economics, Atmospheric Science, Environmental Toxicology, Applied Biological Systems Technology, Geology, Hydrology and all disciplines of Engineering.  Students enrolled in the minor will acquire fundamental skills and knowledge of the elements and integrated processes necessary for a sustainable built environment.

To complete this minor a student is required to:

1. Take ECI 123 (4 units); and
2. Take one additional course, of at least 3 units each, in each of three core thematic areas of the minor: Engineering & Science, Social Context, and Policy & Economics; and
3. Take at least one additional course in any of the three core thematic areas of the minor (can be any number of units); and
4. Complete at least 14 units of coursework from the core thematic areas of the minor. May include 1-3 units of ECI 198 sustainable design project, by approval of advisor.

Successful completion of the minor requires both a minimum overall UC GPA of 2.000 and a minimum 2.000 GPA for the coursework completed for the minor, with no grade lower than a C- for any course used for the minor. All courses must be taken for a letter grade. Up to 4 units can be lower division, all other units must be upper division. Substitute courses in the thematic areas may be proposed by students for the minor and are considered on a case-by-case basis.

Please refer to your college’s policies regarding course overlap rules.

The Minor Declaration form is available via the Online Advising Student Information System (OASIS). For more information, please email the undergraduate advisors in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Transcript notation must be requested no later than the quarter preceding graduation and will appear as a minor in Sustainability in the Built Environment.

Minor Advisors

H.N. Bischel, C.E. Bronner, A.L. Forrest, F.J. Loge, A. Kendall, S.A. Miller

Course List

Code	Title	Units
ECI 123	Urban Systems & Sustainability	4
Complete at least 14 units of coursework from the three core thematic areas, below. 1		14
Engineering & Science
Choose at least one, 3 or 4 unit course:
ATM 116	Modern Climate Change
DES 127A	Sustainable Design
DES 127B	Studio Practice in Sustainable Design
DES 156	Graphitecture: Architecture in the Age of New Media
ECI 040	Introduction to Environmental Engineering
ECI 140A	Environmental Analysis of Aqueous Systems
ECI/ATM 149	(Discontinued)
ECI 155	Water Resources Engineering Planning
ECI/ESP 163	Energy & Environmental Aspects of Transportation
ECI 165	Transportation Policy
ENG 188	Science & Technology of Sustainable Power Generation
ETX 101	Principles of Environmental Toxicology
GEL 130	Non-Renewable Natural Resources
LDA 140	Green Building, Design, & Materials
Social Context
Choose at least one, 3 or 4 unit course:
ANT/ESP 101	Ecology, Nature, & Society
ANT 104N	Cultural Politics of the Environment
CRD 142	Rural Change in the Industrialized World
CRD 149	Community Development Perspectives on Environmental Justice
CRD 154	Social Theory & Community Change
CRD 158	Community Governance
CRD 172	Social Inequality: Issues & Innovations
LDA 003	Sustainable Development: Theory & Practice
PLS 162	Urban Ecology
Policy & Economics
Choose at least one, 4 unit course:
ARE/ESP 175	Natural Resource Economics
ARE 176	Environmental Economics
ESP 161	Environmental Law
ESP 162	Environmental Policy
ESP 171	Urban & Regional Planning
ESP 173	Land Use & Growth Controls
PLS 150	Sustainability & Agroecosystem Management
Total Units		18

¹

May include 1-3 units of ECI 198, by approval of advisor.