Environmental studies professor Andres Sanchez, wearing a red plaid shirt and baseball cap, shows a group of students who are standing around him how to use a T-shaped, metal soil-sampling tool. The group is standing in a large garden with greenery and picnic tables nearby.

Training for Tomorrow’s Leaders

Want to build a more sustainable, environmentally just future for our planet? We’re with you! The Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability is where you can get the training you need to become an environmental and sustainability changemaker.

We offer degree programs, internships, and more to help you create the career of your dreams. Whether the environment is your whole focus, or just part of what you want to do, you can make it happen here.

Explore environment and sustainability degrees

Get Out of the Classroom

    About Our Internships

    Wrigley Institute internships prepare you for careers that change the world. However you want to help the environment, and no matter what your major is, we provide the hands-on experience you need to be competitive when you graduate.

    Research Internships

    Our NSF-funded REU program, Zinsmeyer Summer Research Program, and school-year research internships get you into the lab or the field to build your portfolio for graduate school and scientific careers.

    Environmental Communications Internships

    Working directly with Wrigley Institute faculty and programs, our environmental communications interns build written, digital, and visual storytelling skills as they share important research with the public.

    Conservation Internships

    Wrigley Institute conservation internships pair students with local organizations to learn real-life skills that help preserve and restore our planet’s most vulnerable species.

    Environmental Summer Awards

    We believe that all talented students, regardless of financial resources, should be able to access internship opportunities. Our environmental summer awards provide supplementary funding for internships that would otherwise be unpaid or underpaid.

    Note: Environmental summer awards are currently closed for 2024, but check back in early 2025 for the next application cycle.

    Are you ready for the island experience?

    Our Catalina Residential College, based at the Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island, is next-level environmental education. Programs are offered exclusively to USC undergraduates and include one-of-a-kind, immersive experiences in all things sustainability.

    Learn on Catalina Island
    two students carrying backpacks raise their arms in joy as they hike down a hillside dirt trail toward the ocean

    Go off the deep end

    Our Scientific Diving course is a world-class AAUS certification program for USC’s researchers-in-training and any students seeking careers below the waves. Get in the water with us and learn how to save our oceans.

    Dive into your future
    a scuba diver cups their hands around orange seaweed growing along a rocky reef

    Education News

    Whether in the classroom, in the field, in the workplace, or in the lab, our students are immersing themselves in solutions to today’s most pressing environmental and sustainability problems. See what they’ve been up to and get inspired!

    Students making a difference for our planet