Core Courses
In MEERL, students explore the resource life cycle through an interdisciplinary approach. You will learn the progression of the resource life cycle, with its fundamental earth science and engineering aspects, as the center of this program. You will explore the resource lifecycle in 7 core courses and through four different perspectives.
Business Strategy & Innovation | Economics | Law Policy | Stakeholder Engagement
This course will progress through an overview of the entire resource life cycle for energy and mineral commodities. The geological nature of the resource itself, its role as a commodity, and environmental aspects associated with its development will be considered. Concepts of sustainable resource management, including an emphasis on other related natural resources, such as ground and surface water, will be studied.
This course will be structured around four key elements of the role of a General Manager, applied specifically to the management and leadership tasks inherent in the Resource Sector: understanding business context and environment, providing direction and leadership, establishing priorities and meeting commitments, and leading change and innovation.
This course covers the basics of investment, financial analysis, project finance, and risk pertinent to the resource extraction industries. This includes investment opportunities, fundamentals of cash flow analysis for decision making, risk analysis and project finance, and the relationship between projects and the enterprise.
This course will build on EERL 803 by broadening considerations from strictly financial measures to include integrated financial models, which incorporate socio-economic and environmental considerations essential for decision-making, stakeholder analysis, sustainable development, and negotiation and social license to operate.
This course focuses on current and emerging legal, policy, and ethical issues at each stage of the resource discovery, acquisition, extraction, and closure process. Students will improve their understanding of land and resource rights; Indigenous rights; corporate governance and social responsibility; climate change, environmental and resource regulation; permitting; community engagement and social license to operate; capital raising and disclosure obligations.
This course will expose students to approaches and methodologies essential in developing effective stakeholder engagement and partnerships between the private sector, government, international organizations, communities, and non-governmental organizations. It will also address conflict management in the extractive sector and develop skills to support effective leadership and team-building strategies in challenging multi-stakeholder environments.
Design thinking, systems thinking, and futures thinking will be used to examine what technology is, explore the complex industry challenges, and rethink our approach to technology, innovation, and leadership. This course challenges students to reframe their jobs, their relationship to technology, and their approach to leadership and innovation.
Elective Course Descriptions
Take 3 of 4 elective courses where you will examine in-depth the energy or mineral life cycle, take a field-based synthesis course, or explore a topic of interest through a sector-focused project.
This course is an in-depth study of the minerals' life cycle, considering resource aspects of geoscience and engineering, along with social, environmental, business, and economic attributes, in an integrated manner. Both technical and non-technical risk aspects and concepts of sustainability will be considered.
This course is an in-depth study of the energy resources life cycle, including exploration, development, processing, marketing, and transport process. Topics will focus on conventional and unconventional petroleum resources. Resource, business, and economic aspects will be examined in an integrated manner, and technical and non-technical risk will be considered.
This course will provide intensive analysis of a case example that is an actual resource development challenge related to either energy or mineral development, or both. Students will work in teams, as part of a field and/or site visit for approximately one week duration. Field trip fee will apply.
This course provides flexibility for the student to focus on a topic of interest related to the program's content but does not directly address other coursework. A student may bring a pertinent challenge from their work setting or develop a project idea in consultation with the program faculty. All project plans must receive approval from the course professor prior to commencing this course.
The MEERL Online Experience
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We design courses to fit your lifestyle with course materials being available 24/7 through our online platform
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Recorded lectures can be completed at your desired timing and pace
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Live webinars create an interactive environment with the professors and fellow students and makes space for questions, class discussions and networking
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Discussion boards promote learning from your fellow classmates and sharing experiences
Geology Bootcamp
Are you coming from a non-technical background? We want to ensure that you have the knowledge that you need to succeed throughout the courses in MEERL, so we created a free resource called geology bootcamp. It introduces the fundamental concepts of geological sciences for graduate students entering geology from external programs.