Mauri, Àngel

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

FURTHER E D U C A T I O N  C O U R S E S  
IN E N V N O N M E N T A L  SCIENCES 
BOTH IN POLIRCS AND IN BUSINESS AND EDUCATION, 
!¿ SPECIALISTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES ARE URGENTLY 
IN DEMAND. THEIR MISSION IS TO ADMINISTRATE THE 
NATURAL ENVIRONMENT, EVALUATE ECOLOGICAL IMPACT, 
ANALYSE AND FORESEE TERRITORIAL PLANNING AND PASS 
ON PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE TO THE YOUNGER 
GENERATIONS . 
ccording to the latest report by the 
Worldwatch Institute, population 
growth, the high rate of con- 
sumption of resources and poverty are 
leading the planet's economy towards 
ecological bankruptcy. In matters of de- 
velopment and environment, knowledge 
and technology and, in short, education, 
play a crucial role. However, ecological 
awareness has not always gone hand in 
hand with scientific training and few pe- 
ople today are in any doubt about the 
gaps still affecting environmental educa- 
tion. Little wonder, then, that in a short 
space of time new courses in this field 
have sprung up al1 over the world. In Cat- 
alonia, official education in environmen- 
tal matters i s  organised on various levels: 
- modules in technical training (FP-3), of 
one year's duration; 
- optional environment-specialized block 
at the College of Industrial Technical En- 
gineers in Terrassa; 
- postgraduate and master's courses at 
most universities; 
- doctorates; 
- further education courses in Environ- 
mental Sciences, the subiect of this article. 
At present, there are university courses in 
Environmental Sciences at the Faculty of 
Science of the Autonomous University of 
Barcelona (UAB) and at the Faculty of Ex- 
perimental and Health Sciences at the 
University of Girona (UdG). In both 
cases, the number of teaching hours, in- 
cluding theory and practice, for the whole 
of the course, totals some 3,000. The 
course lasts four years, arranged in two 
cycles of two years each. The first cycle 
is  a general scientific introduction to the 
Environmental Sciences and a detailed 
look at the complementary disciplines, 
while the second cycle puts the emphasis 
on specialization. 
Students can follow various paths accord- 
ing to the optional subiects they choose 
in the second cycle. At the Autonomous 
University of Barcelona, the options are 
Environmental Technology, Environmental 
Analysis and Environmental Manage- 
ment, while at the University of Girona 
students can choose from Environmental 
Planning and Management, on one hand, 
and Environmental Science and Technol- 
ogy, on the other. 
Courses in Environmental Sciences are 
based on the m~lt idisci~l inary relation- 
ship beiween the different areas of knowl- 
edge concerned in the diagnosis of envi- 
ronmental problems, both from the scien- 
tific and technical point of view and from 
the legal and land management point of 
view. The specialists trained by the uni- 
versities must not only be able to interpret 
the changes taking ~ l a c e  around them, 
but also to come up with solutions to con- 
flicts. The Environmental Science gradu- 
ates trained at the UAB and the UdG will 
have a broad and varied insight into the 
environment (first-cycle studies) and, at 
the same time, thanks to their specializa- 
tion (second-cycle studies), they have ac- 
cess to such varied fields as process con- 
trol, waste treatment, impact studies or 
the restoration of damaged systems. In 
politics, as well as in business or educa- 
tion, these specialists are urgently called 
in to manage the environment, evaluate 
ecological impacts, analyse and plan 
land management and pass on new prac- 
tical knowledge to the younger genera- 
tions. Futures studies predicts a consid- 
erable increase in environment-related 
iobs at al1 levels of education. There are 
opportunities in the Administration (es- 
pecially the local administration, as in the 
department of the Environment of the Ge- 
neralitat de Catalunya), at research and 
teaching universities, as technological ad- 
visors or environmental consultants and 
in environmental control departments in 
large companies. The courses at the two 
universities have recently been homolo- 
gized and students who complete the 
cycle receive a degree in Environmental 
Sciences. However, homologation has 
not brough substantial changes to the 
courses. For practical purposes, it means 
a considerable reduction in the registra- 
tion fee, which will foreseeably lead to 
an increase in the number of applicants 
and therefore a stiffening of the entry 
requirements. In time it may be possible 
to go straight into the second cycle from 
another course of study. 
On the introduction and depth of envi- 
ronmental education depends one of the 
challenges included in the Rio de Janeiro 
Declaration of June 1992: "Human beings 
... have a right to a healthy and produc- 
tive life in harmony with nature". ¤ 


Further Education Courses in Environmental Sciences

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Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert