Conservation Biology Certificate

Certificate Name and Number: Conservation Biology Certificate – CTCBIG

Department(s)/Unit(s): College of Arts and Sciences

Delivery Mode: Athens Campus

Terms of Entry: Fall, Spring, Summer

Enrollment Eligibility: Degree-seeking students

Certificate Overview: Conservation Biology is a discipline concerned with the preservation, management, and restoration of biodiversity. The field is inherently interdisciplinary and merges natural and social sciences to focus on understanding of the factors responsible for promoting and maintaining biodiversity on the one hand and the challenges of mitigating the extinction of species, preserving sensitive habitats and managing landscapes that support biodiversity on the other hand. The Program in Conservation Biology offers an interdisciplinary graduate certificate in conservation biology that involves contributions from anthropology and sociology, biological sciences, economics, geography, geology, history, and political science. The program applies a multifaceted understanding of the factors affecting the preservation of biological diversity. It is centered in the Department of Biological Sciences but includes faculty members from the Departments of Environmental and Plant Biology, Economics, Geography, and Political Science.

The certificate program is designed to provide graduate students in the natural sciences exposure to the social, economic, and political approaches for conserving biological diversity. Conversely, graduate students in the social sciences are given the opportunity to obtain expertise in biological principles that can be used to understand how human altered habitats may lead to a loss of biological diversity.

Certificate Learning Outcomes:

Students will demonstrate the ability to enumerate the major threats to the preservation of biological diversity.
Demonstrate the proficiency in core principles in Conservation Science and use these to identify anthropogenic threats to biological diversity
Demonstrate the ability to synthesize public policy and biological data to develop mitigation strategies for current threats to species persistence.

Opportunities upon Completion: Students with this certificate can pursue careers where additional training in conservation policy and biological diversity will make them more competitive.

Completion Requirements: The requirements for the certificate are the completion of BIOS 5810 Animal Conservation Biology (3), BIOS 7970 Seminar in Conservation Biology (2), and three courses from the following list for a total of 1417 credit hours. Two of the three courses must be outside your major field of study. The certificate is awarded upon fulfillment of these requirements and completion of the graduate degree.

Nine departments within the College of Arts and Sciences offer the courses listed below. In addition, up to five hours of courses offered under titles such as Special Topics or Colloquium that focus on aspects of conservation biology may be applied toward the certificate with the approval of your certificate advisor.

Biological Sciences

BIOS 5250 – Evolutionary Genetics (3)
BIOS 5570 – Animal Systematics (3)
BIOS 5770 – Population Ecology (3)
BIOS 5780 – Community Ecology (3)
BIOS 5790 – Advanced Evolution (3)
GEOG 5160 – Biogeography (3) cross-listed as BIOS 5160
GEOG 5170 – Landscape Ecology (4)
GEOG 5440 – Agricultural Ecosystems (4)
GEOL 5480 – Paleoecology (4)
PBIO 5090 – Plant Systematics and Survey of Vascular Plant Families (4)
PBIO 5220 – Tropical Plant Ecology (3)
PBIO 5340 – Plant Population Biology and Community Ecology (4)
PBIO 5750 – Plant Population Genetics and Speciation (3)

Natural Resource Economics and Policy

GEOG 5470 – Natural Resource Conservation (4)
GEOG 5500 – Land Use Planning (4)
GEOG 5530 – Environmental Planning and Assessment (4)
ECON 5130 – Economics of the Environment (4)
ECON 5140 – Natural Resource Economics (4)
POLS 5250 – Environmental and Natural Resources Politics and Policy (3)
POLS 5260 – Politics of the Contemporary Environmental Movement (3)

Sociological Context of Conservation Biology

ANTH 5780 – Human Ecology (3)
GEOG 5210 – Population Geography (4)
HIST 5060 – American Environmental History (4)
SOC 5810 – Environmental Sociology (3)

Special Topics and Colloquia

ANTH 5944 – Seminar in Human Ecology (3)
GEOG 6470 – Seminar in Resource Management (4)

Financial Aid Eligibility Information:

Degree-seeking students may use federal financial aid only for 1) coursework fulfilling requirements of their degree, including required elective hours, or 2) coursework toward a second financial aid-eligible program.
Students receiving federal financial aid may not take courses for this certificate unless they are also enrolled full-time (9 hours) in their degree program during the same academic term. Financial aid may be used for courses that count toward both degree requirements and the certificate.

Admission Requirements: No additional requirements beyond university graduate admission requirements. Students currently enrolled in a graduate degree program can add the conservation biology certificate to their program of study by completing an Application for Update of Graduate Academic Programs (found on the Graduate College Forms webpage) and submitting it to the Graduate College.

International Students: This certificate program alone does not permit full-time enrollment in residence at Ohio University, and an I-20 cannot be issued based on admission to this certificate. However, this certificate can be completed along with an Athens campus degree program, and an I-20 may be issued based on admission to that degree program.