Environmental engineering technology programs prepare people to help engineers who work to control pollution. Students learn how to test samples in labs. They also learn to calibrate and maintain equipment.

Try making a list of the things you've done so far today that have had an impact on the environment. If you took a shower or went to the bathroom, you soaped up and dirtied some water. The food you ate was created by farming that probably caused chemical runoff, animal waste runoff, and soil erosion (and it also used water). If you drove a car, you added greenhouse gases and maybe worse to the air, and the fuel extraction and refining also had some bad effects. Surely you threw out some garbage today, too.

Nobody is expecting you to live like the cave dwellers did. (Anyway, even they affected their environment.) The point is that public concern about the environment is increasing. Industry and government are looking at more ways to reduce pollution. And this is creating many new jobs for people who can control and remedy pollution. Many of these people are technologists and technicians.

Environmental engineering is a complex task that requires a team of workers. The engineers come up with the designs for ways to reduce pollution or clean it up. The technologists and technicians make those designs work.

To be an engineering technologist, you need a bachelor's degree. You can earn this in four years of post-high-school study. About ten colleges offer a program of this kind. It is a truly interdisciplinary major, because it involves a lot of different kinds of knowledge. You need to study several branches of science: chemistry, biology, and physics. You also need to understand how economic forces work. All of these natural and social sciences use math. You learn how to measure pollution and create computer-based models of how it spreads. You learn how to test the effectiveness of pollution-control equipment and suggest changes to their design. You apply scientific methods to real-world problems.

Technicians qualify for the work with an associate degree. This requires two years of study and is offered at about 100 colleges. The science and math are less demanding than in the four-year program, but you still learn a lot about solving engineering problems. Your work may be to gather data during an experiment. Or you may work with pollution control equipment. You may specialize, for example, in controlling pollution in industrial settings or working with hazardous materials.