Bieler School of Environment (About the School)

McGill’s faculties of Arts, of Science, and of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, have forged a unique approach to the study of environment through the interfaculty, trans-disciplinary Bieler School of Environment. The rapid growth of technology, global economies, and global population have dramatic and significant environmental impacts that are felt locally and in the short-term as well as perturbations affecting large-scale global ecosystems felt over hundreds if not thousands of years. Solutions to the environmental challenges we face will come from an understanding of global ecosystems and the conflicting and complex ways in which human activities are intertwined with them. Studying environmental problems at the intersection of the natural environment and human-built world requires a depth and breadth of knowledge in both the social and natural sciences. The approach of the Bieler School of Environment programs is to introduce students to a broad range of ideas early in the program to provide a foundation and an openness upon which more specialized, disciplinary knowledge can be built. The Bieler School attracts exceptional students able to comprehend and navigate the complex dynamics of environmental challenges and who are catalysts of change in their communities.

The mission of the Bieler School of Environment is:

• to provide a program that will develop a broad-based environmental literacy in the undergraduate population;
• to develop opportunities for graduate students to pursue studies of the environment at an advanced level to create future leaders and researchers; and
• to generate new ideas, new insights, new technologies, and new approaches to understanding and redressing environmental problems through academic research and outreach that draws on the University's existing strength in research and spans disciplinary boundaries.