Through the generosity of the College, its alumnae, and the National Science Foundation, the department is very well equipped with modern instrumentation, equipment, and supplies. Our facilities are housed at two locations: the Train Station/Caboose and the old Water Plant.

The Train Station contains a student/classroom area and a laboratory for the earth sciences, and the caboose serves as office space for two faculty. As an environmental major at Sweet Briar, the student area of the Train Station is your area. There's a couch to relax on, tables to study or work on, a refrigerator and microwave, and modern computers for your exclusive use. You have access to a data projector to practice your class presentations, a map library to help with your class projects, and the departmental library. We hold some classes there too, so you'll often find it convenient to study with friends right up until class time.

The geology lab is well equipped with an extensive collection of rocks and minerals, a Topcon GTS Electronic Total System (computerized laser surveying system), several Garmin global positioning system hand-held units, Leica stereo and compound microscopes with digital cameras and image analysis, digital movie camera and digital still cameras, hand-held dissolved oxygen, turbidity, conductivity and pH meters, and much more.

The Water Plant dates from the earliest days of the college and was just renovated in 2003 as an environmental education/nature center, environmental laboratory, and faculty office. The lab is equipped with extensive water, soil, wastewater, and sediment sampling equipment including N-Con composite samplers, macroinvertebrate samplers, and specialized water collection devices, Hach 4000 UV/Vis and Vis spectrophotometers, Agilent 1100 high performance liquid chromatograph w/ diode array and fluorescence detectors, a Hewlett Packard gas chromatograph with mass selective detector, a Perkin-Elmer 800 atomic absorption spectrometer, a Turner Systems TD-20 luminometer, a BIOLOG microbial identification system, and much more.

Outside the labs, you'll have access to our departmental 4WD vehicle, our two boats and our greatest facility of all... five square miles of campus and the Virginia piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains!