Whitney’s Video Story: Environmental Science Major

Whitney’s love for nature has always been present in her life and education. “I was pretty much raised by the outdoors,” she says. “I spent most of my childhood out there.” This early appreciation for wild spaces and the environment has led her to pursue a degree in Environmental Science at UW-Green Bay. Whitney discusses how she loves the broad nature of the Environmental Science program at UW-Green Bay. One of her favorite labs is Ecology because it’s an outdoor adventure, but she also has taken and likes Environmental Systems and Climatology. Equipped with the necessary skills from her hands-on lab experience and lectures, Whitney is gearing up to make a difference with her research on the Great Lakes.

[Note to reader: this video contains information about UW-Green Bay’s Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science]

Transcript: I’ve always loved being outside and spent most of my childhood out there so my parents knew, from I think they said like the age of three, that I was going to be in the sciences. Environmental Sciences is so broad that you can learn pretty much anything you want to. So, I’m taking a Climatology class but at the same time, I’ve taken Ecology and all this other water-based stuff. So, it’s like you can choose what you like well. My absolute favorite so far was Ecology. Because that one you were literally learning about connections with everything so I got a little bit of like, learning about the environment, a little bit about animals, and the labs were so much fun. We got to go out and look for salamanders on campus and my group actually found 20 of them. Where we had to measure them and mark their location. It was so much fun. For Environmental Science Capstone you help a grad student with their research. Because they provide opportunities you’d be able to be on a published academic paper. Mine we were researching spiders but we had to go out to the Cofrin Arboretum. Catch the spiders, bring them back, and then we were studying their behavior. You get to make some really close friends in that class, cuz it’s so much smaller. You guys work together to figure it out so that you can actually do your own research and it’s not as scary, cuz you know what you’re doing then. So, for Environmental Systems, you get to do a lot of fun labs, like where you get to put on waiters and go out to the creek. And we would measure like the velocity. They’re collecting samples and watching dye move through it to see how the water is moving through it and disperses. We were out there collecting groundwater, to not only like test what was in it but also learning how it flows underground, so you can see how a contaminant could spread from its source. The professors here are absolutely amazing. I love all of them because they are researching themselves, so then they can share their passions with you. So, I pretty much was raised by the outdoors with how much time I spent out there and I want to be able to save all of that so that my kids and everyone else can see it.