School of BioSciences Program

Overview

The M.Sc. (Environmental Sciences) program is relevant to young students/ professionals who are looking to develop their analytical and research skills regarding important issues in environment. The course has been designed to meet the demand of growing needs of professionals in the fields of environment management, environment laws, environment governance and policy, impact assessment, natural resource management, pollution control, etc.

The long-term research goals for the Environment based Scientists, are to place as a research laboratory engaged in high quality research on different environmental aspect, biodiversity conservation and environmental impact assessment, development of strategies for the sustainable development at the regional, national and global level.

Students would be encouraged to go beyond the classroom and conduct active action-research research projects with subject experts and institutions in different fields. Lectures and classroom sessions are accompanied by on-field visits, laboratory experiments and in-plant training. These interventions are compulsory and essential aspects of the curriculum.

With NEP-2020 in background, the curricula articulate the spirit of the policy by emphasizing upon integrated approach to learning; innovative pedagogies and assessment strategies; multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary education; creative and critical thinking; ethical and Constitutional values through value-based courses; 21st century capabilities across the range of disciplines through life skills, entrepreneurial and professional skills; community and constructive public engagement; social, moral and environmental awareness; Organic Living and Global Citizenship Education (GCED); holistic, inquiry-based, discovery-based, discussion based, and analysis-based learning; exposure to Indian knowledge system, cultural traditions and classical literature through relevant courses offering ‘Knowledge of India’; fine blend of modern pedagogies with indigenous and traditional ways of learning; flexibility in course choices; student-centric participatory learning; imaginative and flexible curricular structures to enable creative combination of disciplines for study.

The revised curriculum to formulate a uniform template featuring; Background, Programme Outcomes, Programme Specific Outcomes, Postgraduate Attributes, Structure of Masters Course, Learning Outcome Index, Semester-wise Courses and Credit Distribution, Course-level Learning Outcomes, Teaching-Learning Process, Blended Learning, Assessment and Evaluation, Keywords.

Programme Objective

Environmental Sciences are necessarily to be taught in an inter-disciplinary curriculum. There is need to strengthen the students to understand essential aspects of environmental sciences in diverse subject areas such as chemistry, biology, pollution, geosciences, atmospheric sciences, biodiversity, natural resources management and wildlife management. There is also an additional emphasis in providing opportunities to understand the integration of modern sciences such as geographical information systems (GIS) and remote sensing applications to environmental sciences. This integration has been enabled in the syllabus.

The program aims to educate students with an objective of teaching, learning and research to promote the idea of environmental sustainability by imparting courses on ecological, social, economic, legal and ethical aspects of the environmental studies on a basic and applied interdisciplinary foundation, such as Environmental Impact Assessment, Ecotoxicology & Environmental Health, Environmental Microbiology & Biotechnology, Mountain Ecology, Wildlife Management and Conservation, Sustainable Agriculture and Organic Farming, Forestry and Habitat Management

In our Program the students would be empowered with multidisciplinary approach to attain and acquire skills to: 

• To evolve into an original researcher and carry out cutting-edge teaching and research for understanding the complex environmental issues and problems.
• Capable of predicting the change in environment and provide scientifically and techno-economically feasible and socially acceptable solutions
• To hone the skills to become sustainability managers and guide different industries, non-government organizations at national and international level, strategic policy-making bodies. 
• Act as a facilitator to bridge the gap between science and society to achieve ecological restoration, conservation and management of biodiversity.

• To be an expert in research and communication within industries working with environmentally benign products, improved waste handling, and development of sustainable processes of production 
• To be a part of National and international advising, consultancy and project management companies with strong bias in environmental pollution, solutions for environmental protection, ecosystem restoration and human health. 

• Capable of developing new solutions and methodologies for clean technology and bioremediation technologies to clean air, soil and water.
• To capable of generation of experimental data using various instrumental software, processing and visualization of experimental data using statistical methods, processing software’s, environmental and mathematical modelling

The M.Sc. Environmental Sciences course at the  School of Biosciences, SRHU, has been designed on the basis of learning outcome based curriculum framework (LOCF) motto. The course covers the fundamental and advanced areas of Environmental Sciences with a range of core subjects in each semester. Along with providing the traditional Environmental Sciences knowledge, the course also has enough scope for inter- and multi-disciplinary subjects in the form of electives. This course also caters the skill enhancement needs of the students as well as provides opportunity for collaboration and learning from other disciplines in the form of general elective courses, and thus enabling the students to broaden their horizon in complementary subjects. Every semester has a practical course for strengthening their skills in designing and conducting experiments in the field of Environmental Sciences. The six-month dissertation in the last semester orients and prepares the students for research and development in academia and industry

Employability

Environmental Sciences is a career oriented, high demand fundamental course with applications in all applied research related to sustainable development all, be it plants, animal, human and microbes etc. Students can peruse basic research work in research institutes or universities by qualifying various exams for research fellowships. Students can also work in educational and applied research fields. It provides opportunity to students to develop their career in the following areas: 

Career Opportunities 

• Industry (Environmental Impact Assessment, Sustainable Resource Management, Waste Management, Environmental Biotechnology, Eco-technology) 
• Government and Business Sector (Environmental Manager, Environmental Planner, Environment Consultant, Analysts) 
• Universities, Colleges and Research Institutes (Teaching and Research) 
• Non-governmental Organizations at National and International Levels
• Develop as sustainability managers to guide manufacturing industries, non-government organizations (national and international), policy-making bodies