WCJ enriches students’ education by connecting them with research, community knowledge, and real-world challenges in environmental and climate justice
WCJ provides students with faculty-led research and experiential learning opportunities that bridge academic inquiry and community engagement. Through interdisciplinary collaboration, students contribute to ongoing research, learn alongside faculty and community partners, and explore how climate and environmental justice issues shape communities across New York City and beyond. By bringing research into the learning experience, WCJ helps students develop critical thinking, research skills, and the capacity to connect knowledge with meaningful social change.
Undergraduate researchers in the field, East Side Coastal Resiliency Project
The Environmental Justice and Sustainability (EJS) Minor is the undergraduate educational pathway of the Center for Water and Climate Justice at John Jay College. Rooted in the College’s mission of justice, public service, and civic engagement, the minor prepares students to respond to the intertwined challenges of climate change, water insecurity, biodiversity loss, and environmental injustice.
Environmental problems are never simply ecological—they are also questions of history, governance, human rights, and social equity. EJS students examine how environmental harms and benefits are distributed across race, class, geography, and power while exploring the policies, community movements, and cultural practices that shape more just and sustainable futures. All EJS courses fulfill General Education Requirements.
Located in New York City, a great coastal megacity, the program uses the city and its waterways as living classrooms. Students investigate climate resilience, environmental health, water justice, food systems, energy transitions, urban ecology, Indigenous and community knowledge, and environmental governance through field-based courses, community-engaged projects, and research opportunities.
A defining feature of the program is its emphasis on water as a material and conceptual foundation for environmental justice. Rivers, estuaries, wetlands, coastlines, and watersheds become sites for understanding climate adaptation, ecological restoration, public health, Indigenous stewardship, infrastructure, and democratic participation. Bioregional learning shows students that environmental justice begins with learning how to inhabit and care for the places we call home while recognizing our responsibilities within larger ecological systems.
EJS students work alongside faculty in research, public scholarship, and partnerships throughout CUNY and New York City’s coastal communities. Students are also encouraged to participate in the Environmental Justice Club, the Sustainability Council, and public events. Advanced courses offer opportunities to engage with practitioners, policymakers, scientists, artists, and community leaders, as well as international environmental processes such as the United Nations Climate Change Conferences (COP).
The EJS Minor also provides pathways into professional practice. Students pursue paid internships with government agencies, nonprofit and community organizations, and research centers while building networks that support graduate study and careers in environmental policy, law, sustainability, education, public service, advocacy, urban planning, and the growing green economy. EJS faculty view environmental education as preparation for civic leadership, equipping students with the scientific literacy, critical thinking, collaborative skills, and ethical imagination to become researchers, advocates, policymakers, educators, and changemakers.
This course offers an immersive introduction to environmental and climate justice through direct engagement with vulnerable New York City communities. Students connect academic learning with professional practice by participating in field visits, meeting practitioners across government, nonprofit, and community-based sectors, and examining how law, policy, infrastructure, and social inequality shape environmental risk. Through readings, case studies, mentorship, and site-based observation, the course cultivates career-relevant skills in research and policy analysis, public communication, and collaborative problem-solving for sustainability and justice-oriented fields.
Students explore climate and environmental justice issues at Gowanus Canal
This distinctive course offers students the rare opportunity to engage directly with the global effort to confront climate change at the United Nations’ annual climate summit, the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) Conference of the Parties (COP). Designed to immerse students in the historic negotiations among hundreds of nations and territories, the program culminates in international travel to the COP. Through this experience, students receive advanced training in the international politics of climate change. This course bridges classroom learning with professional experiences in environmental justice and sustainability, guiding students to integrate academic theory with real-world action. Centered on the interplay between coursework, professional mentorship, and structured engagement at a placement site, the course fosters both intellectual growth and career development.
The Sustainability Brazil House: The Meeting Point at COP30