High school juniors and seniors, sign up and earn credit with one of our free environmental science programs.
Full Scholarships are available through the generosity of the DeNaples Family and the Keystone Sanitary Landfill, Scranton, PA.
Environmental Course Schedule Summer/Fall 2025:
Climate Change: Biological Impacts (BIOL 144)
A study of the interactions of organisms with their environment through exploration of the biological impacts of climate change on individuals, populations, ecological communities, and ecosystems. Students will develop skills to make informed judgements about the implications of climate change using scientific information and expand their understanding of how and why science works to generate knowledge to address biological issues relative to climate change. Students will construct evidence-based explanations of the impacts of climate change on biological processes such as disease transmission, populations dynamics, and ecosystem functioning.
What you can expect:
- Define climate and compare climate to weather.
- Understand the biology of both organisms and populations.
- Know the locations of major countries around the world using a world map.
- Find scientific articles via electronic databases and websites.
- Validate the science behind climate issues by reading scientific articles and investigating credibility.
- Describe how climate change is affecting nine different biomes around the world using power points and Google Earth story maps.
- Explain how climate change is affecting people around the world using Google Earth story maps.
- List ways in which individuals can live more sustainably by choosing activities from the textbook.
- Identify what they can do to "make a difference" ensuring that future generations will have adequate resources and quality of life by using examples from the textbook.
Climate Change: Biological Impacts Schedule
- Dates: July 2, 2025 - August 15, 2025
- Time: Mondays & Wednesdays, 10:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
- Location: Penn State Scranton
- Delivery: In-person
- Tuition: Free (includes rental of books)
- Credits: 3
Environmental Science (BISC 3) Overview
We are living in extraordinary times. Our numbers have now become so large, our power so great, and our consumption so rampant that we are despoiling our home. Indeed, over the past half-century environmental scientists have been calling attention to the deterioration of Earth's atmosphere, Earth's oceans, Earth's forests and Earth's soils, along with the loss of Earth's biodiversity, from the tropics to the poles. The evidence is unequivocal: Planet Earth is under duress.
We will explore the root causes of today's environmental crisis and, in so doing, consider scientific, technological, sociological, psychological and personal responses to what is, arguable, the most significant crisis in the history of our species.
What you can expect:
- Discover how questions can be powerful catalysts for learning
- Grow in your ability to see both yourself and Planet Earth from new and liberating perspectives
- Appreciate the power of critical thinking and personal reflection as a means to both personal and global transformation
- Realize that you could choose to play a significant role in the healing of our world
Environmental Science Schedule
- Dates: September 3, 2025 - December 17, 2025
- Time: Wednesdays, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
- Location: Penn State Scranton
- Delivery: In-person + online component
- Tuition: Free (includes rental of books)
- Credits: 3
Earth & Environmental Systems Geography (GEOG 4)
Understanding fundamental physical processes operating across the Earth and how these are both impacted and influenced by humans. This environmental course utilizes a systems approach to study the structure and linkages among various components of the Earth system, including the atmosphere, geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and humans. Emphasis is placed on the fundamentals of the physical Earth system, including processes, interactions, feedbacks, and cycles, with particular emphasis on their geographic dimensions and recent change owing to human influence.
What you can expect:
- Be introduced to physical geography and the earth system: tools of geographic inquiry, systems, energy, and radiation
- The geosphere: Earth's formation, plate tectonics, structure of the earth
- The hydrosphere: hydrological cycle, surface and ground water, land and sea ice
- The oceans: physical and biological oceanography and coastal environments
- The biosphere: biogeography, climate and biomes, ecosystems and ecological change
- Earth system change: natural cycles, the greenhouse effect, human impacts on climate and the environment, recent and future climate change
Earth & Environmental Systems Geography Schedule
- Dates: Spring 2026
- Time: Day TBD, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
- Location: Penn State Scranton
- Delivery: In-person + online component
- Tuition: Free (includes rental of books)
- Credits: 3
Environmental Program Registration Information :
Parents/Guardians, contact the Center for Business Development and Community Outreach for registration information by email at [email protected] or phone 570-963-2600. Please provide the grade of the student currently in and school attending.
