Proposições para a estruturação de cursos de graduação em engenharia ambiental

Abstract

Environmental Engineering is a new kind of Engineering, accredited by the Education and Sport Office of the Brazilian Government MEC in the Decree no 1.693 of December 5th, 1994. Since 1992, when the first Environmental Engineering course was accredited, there have been offered 59 courses in 16 Brazilian states. About 75% of these courses and 72% of the positions are in the South and Southeast states of the country. Although the government´s Decree CNE/CES no 11, March 11th, 2002 established the rules for the engineering course´s programs, one could see that the existent courses had a lot of significant differences related to the conception and to the programs so that it became urgentto define the minimum curriculum, thus assuring an identity for this new modality of engineering course. The aim of this dissertation is to study of the Environmental Engineering courses that are available in Brazil an in some other countries and their programs, and to collect opinions withexperts that deal with environmental subjects, concerning the desirable profile for an environmental engineer, and also gather all data in order to propose a course program that allows the egressed student to meet the society´s growing demand for professionals with a systemic, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary view as required by the environmental subjects. This study allowed a greater knowledge of main interfaces between the Environmental Engineering and the other Engineering. Findings of this dissertation shows the necessity of thegraduating schools to develop a big effort in order to create an identity for all Environmental Engineering courses available in Brazil. This will help the profession of the Environmental Engineer become well-known, respected and to be considered a matter of interest to theBrazilian society, especially for those who believe that the sustainable development is the only way to assure the survival of future generations.