Built in the early 1920s, the Steele Building today houses Dartmouth College's Department of Earth Science and the Environmental Studies Program. The Steele Building is part of the complex of buildings that make up the Sherman Fairchild Physical Sciences Center. To graduate, all Dartmouth students must complete at least two courses in the Natural Sciences including one field or laboratory course.
In 2008-9, sixteen students graduated from Dartmouth with degrees in Earth Science, a similar number in Geography, and twenty-four students earned bachelor's degrees in Environmental Studies. None of the other Ivy League schools offers a Geography major. Environmental Studies is an interdisciplinary major in which students take courses in economics and politics as well as several of the natural sciences.
