What can past and present conditions tell us about the future? How can we use Earth system knowledge to effectively address global challenges such as climate change? As a Master’s student of Earth Sciences, you will study natural processes and cycles of the Earth’s system within and among rock, soil, water, organisms and air and learn to find sustainable solutions for present and future challenges regarding our planet and climate.
Earth Sciences offers two specialisations:
Earth System Dynamics (ESD)
ESD examines the processes at work throughout the Earth system, from the deep interior to the land surface and climate, and lets you profile yourself along three themes: climate and the carbon cycle, geohazards, or Earth's interior and resources, supported by a broad set of field, laboratory, modelling and geospatial skills.
Global Environmental Change and Policy (GECP)
If you want to help create sustainable solutions to the world’s greatest societal and scientific challenges: climate change and biodiversity loss, through sound interdisciplinary research, GECP gives you the knowledge and skills to tackle the complex problems our planet faces today.
Secondary school teacher Geography
If you have a passion for teaching you can also enroll in the 2-year Dutch Education master's programme. Within the ESD specialisation, this requires small modifications in the first year curriculum. The educational programme is taught by the Teacher's Academy (Lerarenacademie) of the Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences. It consists of 60 credits of compulsory modules. You will learn how to transfer your knowledge and motivate and inspire students in Geography (Aardrijkskunde). This means that in two years, you will obtain your first-degree teaching qualification education. All teachers in the STEM disciplines are also qualified to teach the STEM elective NLT (Nature, Life and Technology).
Hbo diploma
You can register for the Master Earth Sciences with a Dutch hbo diploma, often without a pre-master. Want to find out how that works? Please send an email to masterearthsciences.beta@vu.nl
