Students should consult the Academic Calendar for course availability and pre-requisites. Electives may be cancelled if enrolment is low or if a suitable instructor is not available. Full list of technical electives are below, and can also be found here. ENVL students can pick any Technical Electives from the pre-approved APSC and Non-APSC course lists (with exceptions, please refer to the footnotes). If you’re interested in other courses that are not included in the pre-approved technical elective lists, please contact the ENVL office at environmental.engineering@ubc.ca for further evaluation.
APSC Courses
| Course | Name | Term | Pre-Req Check |
|---|---|---|---|
| APSC 461 | Global Engineering Leadership – Not offered in Winter 2025 | ||
| APSC 486 | New Venture Design | 1,2 | Yes*** |
| CHBE 344 | Introduction to Unit Operations | 1 | Yes |
| CHBE 352 | Transport Phenomena II | 1 | Yes |
| CHBE 355 | Kinetics and Reactor Design | 2 | No |
| CHBE 376 | Computer Flow sheeting and Unit Operation Design | 2 | |
| CHBE 381 *** | Biological Engineering and Biomanufacturing I | 2 | Yes*** |
| CHBE 472 | Technologies for Human and Environmental Health | 2 | |
| CHBE 473 | Environmental Engineering and Sustainability Leadership | 2 | Yes |
| CHBE 476 | Advanced Process Engineering and Simulation | 1 | Yes |
| CHBE 477 | Fuel Cell and Electrochemical Engineering | 2 | Yes |
| CHBE 483 | Energy Engineering for Climate Change and Sustainability | 1 | |
| CHBE 487 | Interfacial Phenomena | 2 | Yes |
| CHBE 488 | Carbon Capture, Conversion and Sequestration Technologies | 2 | Yes |
| CIVL 300 | Construction Engineering and Management | 2 | Yes |
| CIVL 301 *** | Modelling and Decision-Making in Civil Engineering | 1 | Yes*** |
| CIVL 311 | Soil Mechanics II | 1 | No |
| CIVL 340 *** | Transportation Engineering I | 2 | Yes*** |
| CIVL 408 | Geo-Environmental Engineering – Not offered in Winter 2025 | ||
| CIVL 411 | Foundation Engineering II | 2 | |
| CIVL 413 | Design of Earth Dams and Containment Structures | 2 | No |
| CIVL 415 | Water Resource Engineering – Not offered in Winter 2025 | ||
| CIVL 417 | Coastal Engineering | 2 | Yes |
| CIVL 418 | Engineering Hydrology | 2 | Yes |
| CIVL 440 *** | Transportation Engineering II | 1 | Yes*** |
| CIVL 441 *** | Transportation Planning and Analysis | 2 | Yes*** |
| CIVL 475 | Environmental Stewardship in Civil Engineering – Not offered in Winter 2025 | ||
| CIVL 478 | Building Science | 2 | Yes |
| CIVL 498Q | Topics in Civil Engineering – ENV MICROBIO ENG | 1 | |
| MECH 327 | Thermodynamics II | 1 | |
| MECH 375 | Heat Transfer | 1,2 | |
| MECH 380 | Fluid Dynamics | 2 | |
| MECH 386 | Industrial Fluid Mechanics – Not offered in Winter 2024 | ||
| MECH 392 | Manufacturing Processes | 1 | |
| MECH 469 | Dynamic System Modelling – Not offered in Winter 2025 | ||
| MECH 470 | Energy Conversion Systems | 2 | |
| MECH 495 | Industrial Engineering | 2 | Yes |
| MECH 496 | Engineering Management | 1 | Yes |
| MINE 420 | Applied Geostatics | 2 | |
| MINE 455 | Mine Water Management | 2 | Yes |
| MINE 486 | Mining and The Environment | 2 | Yes |
| MINE 491 | Mine and Plant Engineering Design Feasibility Study | 1,2 |
*** Instructor permission is required for registration
Non-APSC Courses
| Course | Name | Term | Pre-Req Check |
|---|---|---|---|
| APBI 402 | Sustainable Soil Management | 2 | No |
| ARCL 309 | Archeology Collapse & Sustainability – Not offered in Winter 2024 | ||
| ATSC 313 | Renewable Energy Meteorology | 1,2 | Yes |
| CHEM 301 | Aqueous Environmental Chemistry | 2 | No |
| CHEM 302 | Atmospheric Environmental Chemistry | 1 | No |
| CHEM 341 | Global Challenges: A Chemical Perspective | 1 | No |
| COMM 487 ** | Environmental Management – Not offered in Winter 2024 | ||
| COMR 329 ** | Principles of Organizational Behaviour | 1,2 | |
| COMR 457 ** | Fundamentals of Financial Accounting | 1,2 | |
| COMR 458 ** | Fundamentals of Managerial Accounting | 2 | |
| COMR 465 ** | Marketing Management | 1,2 | |
| CONS 330 | Conservation Science and Sustainability | 2 | No |
| CONS 340 | Introduction to Geographic Information Systems for Forestry and Conservation – Not offered in Winter 2024 | Yes | |
| CONS 370 | Indigenous Forestry | 2 | Yes |
| CONS 486 | Fish Conservation and Management | 2 | No |
| CPSC 302 | Numerical Computation for Algebraic Problems | 1 | |
| CPSC 303 | Numerical Approximation and Discretization | 2 | |
| ECON 371 | Economics of the Environment | 1,2 | |
| ENDS 440 | Environment and Urban Form – Not offered in Winter 2024 | ||
| ENST 311 | Urban Environments | 1,2 | No |
| ENVR 410 | Energy, Environment, and Society | 1 | Yes |
| ENVR 420 | Ecohydrology of Watersheds and Water Systems | 2 | Yes |
| EOSC 340 | Climate Change: Causes & Solutions | 1 | Yes |
| EOSC 350 | Environmental, Geotechnical, and Exploration Geophysics I | 1 | Yes |
| EOSC 372 | Introductory Oceanography: Circulation and Plankton | 1 | Yes |
| EOSC 373 | Introductory Oceanography: Climate & Ecosystems | 1 | No |
| EOSC 426 | Fundamentals of Geomicrobiology – Not offered in Winter 2024 | ||
| EOSC 428 | Field Techniques in Groundwater Hydrology | 2 | Yes |
| EOSC 429 | Groundwater Contamination | 2 | Yes |
| EOSC 442 | Climate Measurement and Analysis | 1,2 | No |
| EOSC 474 | Marine Pollution | 1 | Yes |
| FRST 385 | Watershed Hydrology | 1 | Yes |
| FRST 386 | Aquatic Ecosystems and Fish in Forested Watersheds | 2 | Yes |
| FRST 411 | Complex Adaptive Systems, Global Change Science, and Ecology Sustainability | 1 | Yes |
| FRST 443 | Remote Sensing for Ecosystem Management | 2 | Yes |
| GEOG 310 | Environment and Sustainability | 1,2 | No |
| GEOG 312 | Climate Change: Science and Society | 2 | No |
| GEOG 313 | Environmental Justice and Social Change | 2 | No |
| GEOG 314 | Analyzing Environmental Problems | 2 | No |
| GEOG 497 | The Arctic | 1 | |
| GEOS 300 | Microscale Weather & Climate | 2 | No |
| GEOS 401 | Urban Meteorology | 2 | No |
| ISCI 360 | Systems Approaches to Regional Sustainability | 1 | No |
| LAW 387C | Environmental Law | 2 | No |
| MICB 301 | Microbial Ecophysiology | 1 | No |
| MICB 405 | Bioinformatics | 1 | No |
| MICB 425 | Microbial Ecological Genomics | 2 | No |
| PHYS 333 | Energy and Climate | 1 | Yes |
| POLI 351 | Environmental Politics and Policy | 1 | Yes |
| POLI 375A | Global Environmental Politics | 1,2 | yes |
| SCIE 420 | Sustainability for Community and the World | 2 | Yes |
| UFOR 330 | Environmental Justice and Urban Green Equity | 2 | Yes |
+ EOSC 428 has limited capacity, with priority given to GEOE students. ENVL students must first register for the Waiting List, and be screened for significantly restricted seats.
** Restricted to students taking a Commerce Minor. Only one 3-credit Commerce course can be double counted as a technical elective.
Restricted Technical Electives:
| Course | Name | Term | Pre-Req Check |
|---|---|---|---|
| ANTH 360 | Introduction to Ecological Anthropology | Yes | |
| APSC 367 | Humanitarian Engineering: Politics and Practice | 1 | Yes |
| CONS 425 | Sustainable Energy: Policy and Governance | 2 | Yes |
| GEOG 302 | Climate Justice | 2 | Yes |
| GEOG 350 | Urban Worlds | 2 | Yes |
| PLAN 331 | The Just City in a Divided World | 1 | Yes |
| PLAN 351 | Green Cities | 1 | Yes |
| UFOR 403/ APBI 423 | Ecological Restoration | 2 | Yes |
| PLAN 425 | Urban Planning Issues and Concepts | 2 | Yes |
Note: Students may take only one of ANTH 360 (effective Sept 2025), APSC 367, CONS 425, GEOG 302, GEOG 350, PLAN 331, PLAN 351, UFOR 403/APBI 423, and PLAN 425 as a Technical Elective. Additional courses from this list may be taken as Humanity courses or as extra credits, depending on their eligibility assessed here.
* Students will not receive credit for CIVL 406