>
>Q. (1) What should she study? (engineering, biology,
> geology, environmental law?)

A. All of the above and chemistry. Statistics and calculus help, too.

>
>(2) Where should she study?
>

Good question. Most environmental science programs are grad level. I think
the best approach is to get a solid foundation in natural sciences and math
at the undergrad level, looking for a university that has some form or
environmental science program that you can take some specialized courses in
and/or do research over the summer. UW and UCLA have good grad programs
(although I don't know the latest on the fate of the interdisciplinary
environmental program at the UW.). College of marine affairs is good at the
UW if you are interested in aquatic sciences; also Huxley College at Western
Washington University. Farther afield, I seem to recall the University of
Pennsylvania has large undergraduate (and graduate) program in environmental
science. Many of the smaller UC schools have good agriculturally oriented
environmental programs. There are probably a lot of new ones in the 10
years since I was looking around. At that time, most of the private schools
(Harvard, Caltech, MIT, Stanford, etc) were still emphasizing the
traditional scientific disciplines and did not have environmental programs
per se. Caltech does have environmental engineering, but it's very math and
engineering intensive. MIT doesn't have anything like that. Try to avoid
anything called "Environmental Studies", it's likely to be lightweight and
not too marketable.

Look for a program that's interdisciplinary, unless she has a strong bent
toward engineering. Most environmental jobs require broad natural sciences
training. Somewhere along the line she needs to learn good study design
(the most important part of grad school, in my opinion) and the math and
other tools for interpreting complex data sets. It helps if she's at a
large university diverse enough to have related coursework like public
policy, environmental law, environmental economics, land use planning, etc.
Toxicology is pretty important too. If this sounds like a lot, it is! I
think environmental science is one of the most challenging fields to be in,
because if you're trying to make sense of real world interactions, all of
these disciplines come into play, with a lot of chaos thrown in!! I spent
10 years at universities getting three degrees and studying most of the
above fields, and still feel constantly challenged to learn and assimilate
new areas of information that I need to do my job properly.

Hope this is useful - Teresa Michelsen