Formação para a sustentabilidade: análise dos cursos de engenharia civil da Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná (UTFPR) e a dupla diplomação no Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB)

Abstract

The Anthropocene era is characterized by the action of human society that has produced considerable transformations on the planet. The Civil Engineering sector causes environmental impacts related to the consumption of natural resources and the generation of polluting waste. In Brazil, it is responsible for 10% of GDP and job creation. To develop a culture of sustainability, which can change the sector’s paradigms, it is necessary to invest in critical and reflective initial training. The Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPR) has a Sustainability Policy (PS) considered as a strategic value that should be included in teaching, research and extension. The objective of this research, of a qualitative nature, was to understand how the culture of sustainability is inserted during the initial training of the 6 Civil Engineering courses offered by UTFPR, including the double degree from the Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB), in Portugal. Keywords associated with international ranking indicators were used to identify the subjects offered in the courses, which were aligned with the culture of sustainability, to then carry out a content analysis of the syllabi. The same indicators structured the interviews that were applied to coordinators and teachers at UTFPR and IPB, and questionnaires for UTFPR students. The triangulation of data obtained by documents and actors made it possible to verify interrelationships. The results demonstrated that it was not possible to verify PS’s commitment to teaching, due to the lack of documentary evidence in the courses and that the option of training for sustainability would be the student’s choice, through the optional subjects that have records in the syllabi, and not the mandatory ones. The results obtained with the coordinators and teachers of UTFPR and IPB indicate that there is an inclusion of aspects of sustainability in some mandatory subjects, which was also evident in the answers to the students’ questionnaires. The need for better coordination between teachers who teach the mandatory subjects, which include aspects of sustainability, as well as registration to create evidence, was identified. The possibility of courses presenting an academic track was noted, to constitute the training commitment through a sustainability cycle. The need to offer continued training for UTFPR teachers, who still have a strong technical tendency, was also highlighted, to reflect on the possibility of articulating disciplines aiming at a culture of sustainability and the transversality of Critical Environmental Education. UTFPR and IPB would need to align the sustainability cycle in the academic track of the double degree. The educational product (EP) developed from the thesis, consists of a guide, for UTFPR, for the implementation of the commitment to the culture of sustainability through the articulation of interdisciplinarity between the disciplines that could make up the course’s sustainability cycle, and of the transversality of Critical Environmental Education. The guide also indicates the proposition of how to register in the guiding documents of the Civil Engineering course at UTFPR, as well as suggesting the dynamics and methodologies, such as curricular environmentalization, for the continued training of teachers.