Is there any difference between environmental science and environmental geoscience?

[Delphigirl]

Was looking though masses of courses yesterday with DS and I find it all a little confusing. Environmental science and geoscience courses all seem to be quite different from each other when you delve into them, so I can’t tell if env science is considered to be a different degree to env geoscience of not. The env geoscience might look to be a bit more physical geography based, but that might just be the focus of the institution. A couple of places offer degrees in both (eg Southampton) but not many. The Southampton offerings have a lot of overlap with oceanography which eg the Birmingham env science does not, and I guess that is due to Southampton’s specialist interest/NOC etc.

Alternatively if they are different, is env geoscience just a more up to date name for earth sciences?
Please help I am out of my comfort zone being a lawyer who knows zero about geography and earth sciences!

As a geologist that has worked in the engineering and environmental fields, I’d outline the differences as follows:

Environmental sciences will be more interdisciplinary, a combination of geography, chemistry, biology and social sciences, and will lean towards study of human interactions with the environment (environmental management, protection, sustainability etc).

Pure earth sciences such as geology is a lot more earth structure based (geochemistry, geophysics, natural resource exploitation, mapping etc). Lots of rocks!

Environmental geoscience should sit between these two, so the interaction of geology with surface processes, sustainable resource and energy development, environmental protection, geohazard management etc.

Glasgow offers all three courses, so might be worth doing a compare / contrast on course aims and content.

Asked DS2 who is studying in this area. He says it would be best to look at the details of the modules. Glasgow offers Environmental GeoScience which is like the old Earth Sciences with less geology and more environmental. It also offers Geology (mixture of Earth Sciences and Physical Geography). No specific Environmental Science (at his campus) but plenty of environmental options with Geography.

For what it is worth DS2, completely changed his interests over the course of his first 2 years (Scottish 4 year degree) so unless your DS is sure I'd go for something with options to decide later.

Sorry cross posted. LostToucan explained better than me.

That is so helpful, thank you both. Glasgow is interesting because of the modular first two years so in fact he could do geography with environmental science to get more physical and human Geog into what he is studying in the environmental science module. And maybe add some politics or something into the mix.

So if he is also looking at marine geography at Cardiff, which is NOT marine sciences but I think a mix of physical Geog and environmental science with a good grounding of geology and a soupçon of human geography and marine biology in the mix, but all related to coasts and oceans, this might also be quite interesting as a mix, no? Sitting somewhere in the Venn diagram of geography geology and environmental science? What would employers who are looking for an environmental scientist or geographer think of that as a degree?

PS LostToucan I am printing your post out so DS and I can refer to it regularly as we wade through these courses. Super useful thank you! He prefers some of the environmental geoscience ones to environmental science but geology seems to be a rock too far for him 🤣

This article from The Independent might give more insight into the Cardiff course:

www.independent.co.uk/student/career-planning/az-careers/marine-geography-5337168.html

I would suggest that, given the wide range of environmental science based degrees out there, your DS looks closely at all the course descriptions and pick the ones with the modules that really interest him.

Does he have an idea of what he’d like to do after graduating?

I’d recommend maths / physics / chemistry type A levels for a full on earth sciences degree (not that I had any of those - had to get up to speed quite quickly).

Great article thank you. He is doing geography chemistry biology A levels. He has done 2 terms of Physics but recently dropped it.
Re later plans - he may go into the military and has done air cadets then CCF for years. If not I can see him maybe ending up in Canada (he is dual national) and doing something more outdoor and practical rather than totally office based/documentation driven. So something environmental/coastal/ports/surveying might fit with that.

Wide range of environmental jobs in Canada - this website might be useful for looking at specialisms and qualifications:

www.eco.ca/training/career-profiles/

Fab thank you!