EVALUATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE MASTER’S DEGREE CURRICULUM OF URBAN DESIGN AND URBAN PLANNING COURSES

More than six years has passed since the last revision of the Master’s Degree Curriculum for urban design and urban planning courses. During this time, dramatic universal changes have taken place in various fields, most notably in the field of environment and environmental assessment tools. The present study aims to evaluate the environmental knowledge in the curriculum of these two courses. The purpose of this study was to reach a consensus on the content and efficient method to teach environmental issues to urban planning and urban design students. Using descriptive survey and Delphi research method, data are gathered from the questionnaires filled by 12 professors. Finally, a proposed instruction about the content and teaching method is provided. The results indicate the necessity of revising the curriculum of these two courses by change in the current syllabus, providing environmental approach or by defining a new lesson about environmental issues. Thus, the obtained results could be used from two perspectives to fill the gap of environmental training in these fields. In the first perspective, the essential basics for compiling the syllabus of the proposed environmental course in the approved curriculums are provided in the form of direct training. The second one is in the form of indirect training in which the three proposed topics of basic knowledge and concepts, instructions and solutions, and measurement tools are included in the current courses, especially in the courses for urban design and planning workshops and design methods and techniques.