Natural Resource Conservation and Management

As a freshman you will have a variety of courses directly related to your major. In your first semester you’ll learn about the management of the Adirondack Park (the largest park in the continental U.S.); meet with natural resource professionals from forest rangers to climate change specialists; become acquainted with the ecology of the region; learn to identify plants and animals; navigate in the forest and understand the complex and unique ecosystems that make up the Adirondacks. In short, you’ll learn by getting your boots muddy and your paddle wet!

As a senior you will complete a Capstone Course. Some Capstone Research Projects students have presented:

• White-tailed Deer Browse Preference: A Comparative Study of the Catskill and Adirondack Mountain Regions, New York State
• Alpine Ecosystems on Ski Area Summits in the Northeast: A Best Management Practices Manual
• Designing a Multiple-Use Winter Recreation Trail System at the Paul Smith’s College Visitor Interpretive Center
• Monitoring the Zebra Mussel Invasion Front: Use of New Technology
• Reintroduction Feasibility of the Adirondack Wolf

• Conservation Officer
• Environmental Technician
• Naturalist
• Environmental Law
• Community Planning
• Resource Policy Analyst
• Natural Resource Manager

At the end of the program students will be able to:

• Explain the historical role and value of science in policy formation designed to protect, maintain, and restore natural and human altered environments.
• Articulate the differences between inductive and deductive methods of scientific inquiry as each pertain to gaining reliable knowledge.
• Teach students to articulate complex scientific and social issues into a language which is useful and meaningful to the general public.
• Explain the implications of the relationship of cumulative environmental impacts on the resilience of ecosystems, biomes and the biosphere.
• Apply basic principles of sustainability to problem solving across political boundaries.
• Delineate the management environment in ecological, economic, political, and socio-cultural terms.
• Define the cyclic management process as related to an organization’s mission statement, strategic planning, assessment, implementation, and evaluation/monitoring program.
• Articulate the appropriateness of sustainable management models or approaches used to address resource management issues.
• Demonstrate basic knowledge of management and communication needed to work effectively with stakeholders in integrated natural resource management teams.
• Articulate the role of the political process in affecting change in policy and regulations at local, state, national and international scales.
• Develop evaluation and monitoring techniques which facilitate social and economic tenets in the management process.
• Identify opportunities for collaboration and public participation around resource-based issues and define steps to create and maintain effective collaborations under a range of social-economic conditions.
• Apply adaptive management approaches to increase the capacity of human communities to change with economic conditions while maintaining ecological integrity.

Sample courses:

• Intro to Environment and Society
• Conservation Law Enforcement
• Dendrology
• Conservation Biology
• Natural Resources Economics
• Sustainable Development
• Environmental Impact
• Ecology
• Watershed Management

More program information and a full course list can be found in the College Catalog. For program planning sheets, click here.