Analysis of Sustainability Content into Undergraduate Engineering Curriculum at the Engineering School of Sao Carlos, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

Nowadays it is important that universities contribute to improving society through sustainability, preparing future professionals with the knowledge, capabilities, values, attitudes and abilities to act on Sustainable Development (SD). In 2013, the Engineering School of Sao Carlos (EESC), University of Sao Paulo (USP), Brazil, and the Environmental Management Superintendent (EMS), initiated an education for sustainable development project, with the aim of analysing the content of nine undergraduate engineering curricula with a view proposing more environmental-oriented disciplines. In this context, the educational policy project was reviewed and a curriculum analysis done, using an analytical method consisting of the identification of sustainability radicals, such as soc*, sustent*, ecolog* and natur* was performed. The results show that Environmental Engineering courses present the largest sustainability integration with 57 % of environmental-oriented disciplines, followed by Production Engineering courses with 13 %. On average, not considering Environmental Engineering course, only 5.7 % of the EESC engineering courses include some sustainable content, which indicates the necessity for change to the curricula.