Conservation Major
Course Curriculum
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Directed Electives

What is Conservation?

Conservation is the planned management of our natural resources: water, soil, air, wildlife, forests, and more. Planned management has evolved from the standpoint that people and the environment have requirements for their continued existence. Without the knowledgeable utilization of these natural resources, the quality of human life and the quality of our environment will suffer. With a growing human population and its associated demands for and impact on our natural resources, the field of conservation is directed at understanding our environment, and applying and advancing management techniques so as to maintain sustainable communities for all life on Earth.

What do Conservationists do?

Conservation is concerned with the management of the Earth's natural resources for sustained utilization. Since these resources are varied and complex, a person interested in the field of conservation has many opportunities for developing their professional career. A person could take a broad academic approach and pursue a career in the more holistic types of occupations such as a county conservationist, an interpretive naturalist for a private or public nature center, or enforcing environmental regulations as a conservation warden.

Another approach would be to specialize in some specific area of conservation and make a career out of advancing a particular piece of the environmental puzzle. This more specialized approach would enable a person to develop a career in soil conservation, water management or hydrology, wildlife management, forestry, air quality, solid waste management, and the like.

The profession of conservation provides many opportunities for a person to develop a career that will match their particular interests and abilities.

Why major in Conservation?

Students major in Conservation for a variety of reasons:

		They want to work outdoors.
		They want to make a contribution to improve or keep the world a quality place to live for our generation and those to follow.
		They like the broad based curriculum that gives them a large degree of flexibility to specialize in a particular area of conservation that is of interest to them.
		They have a longtime interest in a particular area of conservation that they want to pursue as a professional career.
		They want to acquire the interdisciplinary training needed for many conservation careers.

The Conservation Major at UW-RF

The Conservation major is a broad spectrum curriculum designed to provide the student with an extensive physical, biological and social science knowledge base. The major is a professional career path emphasizing interdisciplinary skills necessary to function in field-oriented natural resource positions. Flexibility built into this curriculum through the use of numerous minors and elective courses allows the student to specifically focus this major to best meet their career objectives for working with our natural resources.