biology question #3842

Rose Durose, a 15 year old female from Maple Ridge asks on April 18, 2007,

Q:

I'm wondering if you could name some pros and cons of the environmental profession and what kind of education does a person need to go into environmental sciences?
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the answer

Kristina Rothley, Ecology professor, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada answered on April 18, 2007, A:

Pros of the environmental profession:

  • involves work that is very satisfying
  • you know you are contributing to make the world a better place
  • get to work with enthusiastic people
  • get to work with plants, animals, streams
  • get to work outside in beautiful places

Cons:

  • salaries might not be competitive with other fields
  • have to think about the problems in the world every day (pollution, waste of natural resources, loss of species)

What kind of education: any educational discipline has an environmental angle. There are teachers who specialize in environmental education, scocial scientists who study humans' attitudes towards the environment, and of course biologists who directly collect data on plants and animals. So it's quite easy to pick a general theme that seems interesting then focus on environmental questions.

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