Resource Management

This cutting-edge concentration prepares you to work in habitat restoration, land conservation and management. This concentration also has wide-ranging applications for organizations, companies and cities. Students in this concentration take at least two field-based courses and do a field-based capstone project.

Many graduates with the Resource Management concentration go on to work in land management and conservation positions in government, non-profit, and private organizations.

Student research

Your capstone project is a culmination of your classroom, research and field experiences in the MES program. Your methods and results are unique to your professional and academic goals. Take a look at abstracts by recent MES students with a concentration in Resource Management to understand the breadth of capstone topics and formats.

Every student in the Master of Environmental Studies (MES) program creates a research poster designed to showcase their capstone project. The selection of posters listed below is representative of the range of research projects undertaken by recent students in the Resource Management concentration.

Sample Resource Management concentration courses

In the Resource Management concentration, you will choose from a wide variety of courses, from departments and graduate schools across the University. The following list provides some examples of courses that the program has approved for students to take as part of this concentration.

School/Department Courses
Department of Earth and Environmental Science (MES Home)
  • The Role of Water in Urban Sustainability and Resiliency
  • Wetlands
  • Modeling Geographic Objects (GIS)
  • Creating Gateways to the Land with Smarter Conversation
  • Modeling Geographic Space (GIS)
  • Regional Field Ecology
  • Ecology, Management and Advocacy of Urban Forests
  • Field Study of Puerto Rico’s Ecology
Organizational Dynamics Program
  • Organizational Project Management
School of Design
  • Site Planning
  • Introduction to Land Use Planning
  • Introduction to Environmental Planning & Policy
  • Innovative Growth Management
  • Planning for Land Conservation
  • Ecological Principles for Planners
  • Topics in Ecological Design
Fels Institute of Government
  • Fundraising for Nonprofits
  • Nonprofit Financial Management
Wharton School of Business
  • Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
Penn Law
  • Land Use Law

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Building bridges to reach people where they are

MES in the Community

As an MES instructor, freshwater ecologist and graduate program alum Lauren McGrath (MES ’16) teaches the importance of connecting with people in protecting the land.