Educação ambiental nos cursos de graduação em Engenharia Ambiental: ocorrência e formas de abordagem

Abstract

Environmental education is fundamental to deal with current society's problems, since environmental disasters are occurring more frequently. According to Brazilian law, environmental education must be included in all levels of education from formal education, including higher education. Universities have the role to produce knowledge according to the needs of society through the articulation between teaching, research and extension. It is recommended that there be emphasis on research on the topic. The objective of this research was to evaluate the occurrence and the ways of approach of EE in the Environmental Engineering courses in Brazil. Therefore, we chose to develop a documentary research and, through it, we realize that the EE is present in 66.67% of the sample we consider. The predominant form of occurrence was the optional discipline, which makes us hopeful that the NDE, if applicable, can recommend its obligation. This is the case of UFU's Environmental Engineering course. Only four courses have obligatory subjects, and it concerned us, once this is the only way to ensure the access of students to EE content. Research and extension projects were little representative and should be more present in the PPCs of the courses.