Last summer a group of writers descended upon Minnesota’s Iron Range to produce a series of stories on how the mining of taconite, a low-grade iron ore, was affecting the local environment. They interviewed mining officials about how tailings once poisoned Lake Superior and watched as taconite pellets were shipped for processing. The writers shared a distinction -- they were all college students doing this research for course credit.

One earmark of an environmental journalism course is that students often find themselves outside of the classroom. The summer course, taught by Mark Neuzil of St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a little unusual in that the entire course was moved from a college campus to a setting in northern Minnesota.

Elizabeth Burch at Sonoma State University in California takes students in her environmental journalism course to places such as an organic winery or a nature preserve. Students at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, research and produce stories dealing with everything from lumbermen in West Virginia to the wilds of Tibet.

“I’m a great believer of using place as a learning tool,” says Jim Detjen, director of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University. In one course, Detjen has students learn the origins of everyday commodities -- electricity, water and food. That approach gives the students new insights into everyday commodities, and how their creation and use may influence their local environment.

The condition of the environmental beat at journalism outlets across the country may be in a state of uncertainty in a time when war, terrorism and the economy are overriding concerns. But the condition of environmental journalism programs at colleges and universities, nonetheless, appears healthy and growing.

Veteran environmental journalism professor Sharon Friedman of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, believes the first university-level environmental journalism course was taught in the late 1960s at the University of Wisconsin.

Today there are at least 30 to 50 colleges and universities across the country that offer anywhere from one course in environmental journalism up to graduate degrees or certifications in the specialty.

The Society of Environmental Journalists lists 30 schools that have programs or courses. A separate University of Wisconsin listing of science journalism programs that may feature environmental journalism offerings totals 50 colleges and universities.

But neither of those two listings is complete. The Wisconsin list omits the Michigan State program run by former SEJ President Detjen and neither lists courses at Yale or Sonoma State.

The programs are sufficiently widespread and numerous that environmental reporter Jane Kay, who writes at the San Francisco Chronicle and teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, regularly gathers environmental journalism educators to discuss common themes and concerns.

Most colleges and universities offer only a course or two, but there are at least 10 where students can earn certificates or degrees -- primarily graduate -- in environmental journalism.

These range from major university journalism programs at Columbia University and the University of Missouri to more modest but highly respected schools such as Lehigh University’s Science and Environmental Writing Program, designed for undergraduates.

The courses vary significantly, but a basic environmental journalism class seems to include readings from a range of authors such as Rachel Carson and John McPhee and others, discussions of environmental subjects, and required journalistic writings.

One topic that environmental journalists often struggle with is population, and the amount of time devoted to it in environmental journalism courses can vary significantly.

Neuzil, at St. Thomas, says population is often but not always one of the issues examined in-depth in the college’s more traditional environmental journalism course offered on campus.

Friedman, who runs the Lehigh program, says population is part of the core curriculum of at least two courses. “It (population) is one of the major drivers of environmental issues, but it is not the only one,” she said.

Student’s backgrounds vary too. Some are traditional journalism majors who want to know more about science, and others may be environment and science majors who want to know more about writing.

The environmental writing course run at Yale attracts graduate scientists interested in journalism and writing.

Fred Strebeigh, a longtime magazine freelance writer in Yale’s English Department, says the course, first offered in conjunction with the Forestry Department in 1982, has been regularly offered for the last 15 years. It draws 15 students who must apply for admission to the class by demonstrating that they have done at least some of the research for a publishable story. Once admitted, they are expected to write and complete the article by the end of the semester.

Strebeigh says students in the first half of the semester discuss story openings, closings, organization and other writing issues, and during that time they are also writing the corresponding segments of their stories. In the second half of the semester, they break up into teams or work alone and spend more time writing and discussing the progress of their work with fellow students and Strebeigh.

Their pieces have been published in Natural History and in Orion and have won several prizes in a student-writing contest sponsored by the Atlantic Monthly.

At Michigan State, the program draws about one-third of the School of Journalism’s 60 graduate students, and at least some have previously worked as journalists. “They come because they are interested in environmental journalism,” Detjen says.

Students at Michigan State take several courses that look at environmental issues from a journalistic perspective. One of the latest is a class on investigative reporting of environmental issues being taught by Dave Poulson, a highly respected environmental and investigative reporter while with Booth Newspapers in Michigan, and since January assistant director of the MSU environmental journalism program. In addition, the program is trying to add science courses to the program’s curriculum.

“We’re trying to add more rigor to the program,” said Detjen. “We want to formalize the program so that people can take a number of environmental science and studies courses.”

The course taught in northern Minnesota was designed for undergraduates not only from St. Thomas University but also from nine other primarily small, private colleges in Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois.

Many of these schools do not have journalism programs, and many credit the class as an English writing course. But journalism lessons are still stressed when Neuzil, who is chairman of the professionally oriented journalism program at St. Thomas, teaches it. Neuzil says that what he likes about the course is that he can go to the interviews and later coach students about their interviewing skills.

“One thing that has always bothered me in 10 years of teaching is how we teach student interviewing skills,” says Neuzil. “There are usually no required courses in interviewing.”

The biggest drawback of the five-week summer course is that the $2,500 tuition significantly limits enrollment. But students spend a portion of the summer in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area with the first week featuring several camping trips out on the water to build class rapport.

Students coming out of these classes may have publishable stories, clippings or broadcast tapes. But once graduated, how many wind up with the kinds of jobs they want?

Despite the recent ailing economy and tight newsroom job markets, most of the schools offering environmental journalism classes report students over the years have fared well in landing positions they want.

“I think, by and large, our students have gotten the jobs where they wanted to be,” Detjen says.

Not all of Michigan State’s journalism graduates have landed jobs on mainstream publications, although one did land at the Chicago Tribune as an environmental writer. But he says the program has a range of students from various backgrounds and with diverse vocational aims.

“I think most of us believe that the climate for environmental journalism jobs is not great at this moment, but that is not necessarily the case around the world,” says Detjen. “There is a great growth in Asia and Africa and numerous opportunities.”

The Michigan State program -- one of the few in the country to have an endowed chair in environmental journalism -- has admitted and taught an increasing number of international students who want to return to their home country and write about environmental problems.

Also both science and journalism majors at some schools might be using the courses as a springboard for jobs in public relations, environmental activism, or other environmental fields. Some science or engineering majors become consultants or scientists better prepared to communicate on the complex policy, regulatory, science, and economic issues common to environmental protection.

“Some have a basic love of science and the environment, but they don’t want to be bench scientists,” explains Lehigh’s Friedman.

Strebeigh at Yale adds: “Many of these students want to be scholars or scientists, and at the same time, they want to be able to write in the same way as people such as E.O. Wilson or Stephen Jay Gould.”

As for faculty, a number of working environmental journalists currently are teaching part-time classes at local colleges and universities. Most of those teaching or running college-level environmental journalism courses and programs have at least a master's degree, but full-time and tenured journalism faculty at many universities, such as at the Universities of Wisconsin, Texas, and Minnesota, routinely have doctorates.

Working reporters wanting to teach college-level environmental journalism classes but lacking the Ph.D. often find that adjunct faculty are hired not because of their degree but because of their professional experience covering the environmental beat.