Bowdoin and the Environment
We must consider our environment from every angle: science, history, human behavior, the influence of politics and religion, the role of art, and the realities of economics and law.
Study of the environment at Bowdoin encourages broad environmental literacy through course offerings and activities available to all students—building a solid foundation for the career paths that Bowdoin graduates pursue in all walks of life.
And outside of the classroom? Sustainability is a core value of our community, and guides our efforts in everything from energy consumption, to dining, to waste management.
What We Build, and How, and Why
Bowdoin's newest academic building, the Roux Center for the Environment, combines our questions and ideas about the study of the environment and puts them directly into practice. The building itself is LEED-platinum certified, and makes use of rooftop gardens, cutting-edge heating and energy solutions, water reuse, and integrated indigenous landscaping.
But as impressive as it stands on its own, the Roux Center exemplifies much more than a building: it combines faculty from across disciplines all over campus to address the pressing issues of the environment in ways that combine the science and the data with ideas about policy, belief systems, cost and profit, aesthetics, culture, and trust.
At the Epicenter of Big Ideas
The Gulf of Maine is the fastest-warming body of water in the world. The state of Maine itself is undergoing substantial economic and environmental changes related to fishing, logging, farming, and tourism.
Our location in Brunswick gives us access to diverse ecosystems—tidal areas, marshes, forests, open ocean, beaches, rivers, bays, and inlets—but also access to the people and projects that depend on them. Rural farming, alternative energy solutions, city airports struggling with migrating seabirds—these are all issues found within half an hour of Bowdoin's campus.
10 Days in Iceland: Bowdoin and the Environment
Twenty students and four faculty members from the Department of Earth and Oceanographic Science trekked to Iceland for ten days for field research into the earth, the sea, and the atmosphere — and the connections among them.