Outlook for Environmental Education in 21st Century

Abstract

Growing concerns over problems from oil spills to global warming, hazardous‐waste disposal to energy‐efficient integrated waste‐management systems have changed the necessary training and skills for practicing environmental professionals. In the past, engineering and science education have failed in four areas: product oriented process development approach, product oriented economical approach, a produce‐here‐dispose‐somewhere‐else approach, and limited interplay between disciplines. Due to the importance of environmental issues in all disciplines of engineering and science, basic training programs are gradually changing from what used to be strictly water and wastewater treatment to areas requiring multi‐disciplinary involvement. Current environmental engineering programs are more comprehensive and include courses in areas such as water, wastewater, water resources, air pollution, solid waste, hazardous waste, systems engineering, and other areas, which include transport modeling, aquatic chemistry, risk assessment, expert systems, and environmetrics. Hazardous waste, environmetrics, and transport modeling are specific subjects that have been increasingly studied in recent years.