Katie Clear is a sophomore Environmental Studies major on a mission. Clear wants to help businesses help the environment. "It's just amazing what's out there and we're destroying it without giving it a second thought. I want to share that with people," she says. Clear is using a love for science and a knack for communication to do just that.

Katie came to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from Warrensburg, Mo., the origin of her "tree-hugging" tendencies. The environment, she explains, was one of the issues she was involved with in high school. "Then I was like, 'Wait a second, I can actually get a major in this?!' That was a cool epiphany," she said.  After touring campus and meeting the Environmental Studies department, UNL became her top college choice.

In her first year, Clear worked with department chair Dr. Dave Gosselin and academic advisor Sarah Yendra to gather information on environmental careers, create a newsletter, and start social networking sites for the major. With much enthusiasm, she became an immediate ambassador of the program.

As a sophomore, Clear continues to do outreach work with the Environmental Studies department. In addition, she is the acting president of the Environmental Resource Center (ERC), a campus club housed in the student union. From the ERC, she coordinated UNL's participation in the national recycling competition, Recyclemania, a large volunteer effort involving many in the department. After 10 weeks of monitoring waste, they calculated that 22 percent of total waste was recycled on campus. UNL's performance was average, said Clear, but she'll be leading the charge to improve performance next year. "It was our first year competing," she said. "We figured out a baseline so next year will be awesome."

Clear also volunteers at the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department's Environmental Public Health Division where she works on various projects, including mapping out common dumping sites around the city.

Clear credits her many achievements to the one on one attention and encouragement she received from the beginning. "My advisors are some of my best friends," says Clear.

Academically, she said she has benefited from the Environmental Studies approach. "It's been really refreshing to learn to apply information instead of memorizing a bunch of things and regurgitating it on a test." Clear says she appreciates an emphasis on systems thinking and the many different directions for study within the major.

Undergraduates in Environmental Studies can receive either a Bachelors of Arts (BA) or a Bachelors of Science (BS) degree. Core classes for both include courses such as Individual and Cultural Effects of the Environment (ENVR 249) and Environmental Engagement in the Community (ENVR 319). From there students can select "collateral courses" in the natural and social sciences and an "emphasis area" in Anthropology, Applied Climate Science, Biology, Chemistry, Geography, Geosciences, Meteorology/Climatology, Natural Resources or Sociology.

Clear opted for the science route. "I really like science. So I've taken a lot of hard science classes. I know a little about everything and I can look at the big picture and really be able to assess situations," she said. For now she's focused on combining her love for science with an interest in business.

"I am a little different, more focused on the urban world of businesses rather than outside nature. While I appreciate those things, I feel like there's an even greater need in the business world because they are controlling a lot of our resources. If we could fix those problems that would influence a lot of other things," she said.