Sustainable development as a subject area and learning objective increasingly finds its way into the curriculum from pre-school to university level, and education and learning are emphasized as key drivers for sustainable development. At the same time, the sustainable development discourse has since its inception been met with critique, not least…

The Planetary Health (PH) approach addresses health risks resulting from anthropogenic climate change. It offers an integrative understanding of nature, whereby humans and their health are regarded as part of nature, and individual concerns are situated in relation to the interactions between society and the environment. However, this approach has…

We communicate, relate, educate and make our world meaningful through stories. Stories are integrated in and are a part of every sustainability issue. In this article, we develop the concept of sustainability stories, and how they can be assessed and developed to correspond with the intentions of education for sustainable development (ESD).…

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is an educational imperative that requires supporting young learners in developing awareness about--and exploring--concepts, topics and vocabulary of significant importance in environmental education. Chawla (2009, "Journal of Developmental Processes," "4"(1), pp. 6-23) identified two…

Within socio-economic transformation processes, the task of education is often reduced to short-term economic factors, that is, a suitable qualification profile of the local population. Transformative education should, however, be based on the broader claim that education contributes to successful transformation processes in the sense of…

This article presents an original and innovative way for primary teacher training concerning teaching the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using concept maps. Four types of concept maps were designed and built so that the interconnections between the 17 SDGs could be captured and the complexity of their interdependencies could be…

Augmenting low income or subsistence lifestyles in developing countries with knowledge, skills and values to enable communities to live in a more sustainable manner is becoming increasingly important as the demands to simply survive increase. Consequently, education for sustainable development (ESD) has emerged strongly in recent years to become a…

According to the curricula in various countries, teachers in the subject areas of science, social science and language are often expected to collaborate on cross-curricular issues such as sustainable development (SD) in the 9-year compulsory school. This study is based in Sweden and investigates teachers' teaching traditions. The overall aim of…

It is crucial that the younger generation be included in the conversation of sustainable development, given the urgent need of a global transition to cleaner energy solutions. Sustainable energy engineering (SEE) taught as early as secondary school can not only increase the number of students that will potentially study engineering to solve global…

The concept of sustainable development is a foundational concept in educational contexts which seems to be interpretable in various terms. With reference to four syllabuses in the Swedish curriculum, our aim is to identify possible ways of conceiving how the concept may be developed in relation to perspectives bringing forth the relation between…

Recognizing the significance of education in promoting sustainable development (SD), China has developed a number of policies and initiatives relating to education for sustainable development (ESD) and climate change education (CCE). The article first reviews China's national policies and initiatives with regard to SD, climate change, education,…

Concept maps are used to assess student and cohort learning of sustainable development. The concept maps of 732 first-year engineering students were individually analyzed to detect patterns of learning and areas that were not well understood. Students were given 20 minutes each to prepare a concept map of at least 20 concepts using paper and pen.…

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the cross-institutional assessment of sustainable development practices in the University of Gondar (UoG). The focus of the assessment was the level of UoG academic departments' integration of sustainability concerns in teaching, research and community service. Management contributions to…

This is a theoretical article to open the discussion of what an education for sustainable development is supposed to achieve and how teachers can help students to develop skills that might be needed in order to support a sustainable future. The focus in the article will be on education. As it is an article aiming to open this kind of discussion…

The metaphor of talking "over the fence" underscores the neutrality of tools. Shovels and hoes do the job, but the gardener creates the transformation of earth to food. Each garden requires a unique approach. Such are the tools of education for sustainable development (ESD). Pre-packaged textbooks and toolkits provide definitions and…