There are very few studies concerning the importance of teaching methods in biology education and environmental education including outdoor education for promoting sustainability at the levels of primary and secondary schools and pre-service teacher education. The material was selected using special keywords from biology and sustainable education in several scientific databases. The article provides an overview of 24 selected articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals from 2006–2016. The data was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Altogether, 16 journals were selected and 24 articles were analyzed in detail. The foci of the analyses were teaching methods, learning environments, knowledge and thinking skills, psychomotor skills, emotions and attitudes, and evaluation methods. Additionally, features of good methods were investigated and their implications for teaching were emphasized. In total, 22 different teaching methods were found to improve sustainability education in different ways. The most emphasized teaching methods were those in which students worked in groups and participated actively in learning processes. Research points toward the value of teaching methods that provide a good introduction and supportive guidelines and include active participation and interactivity.

Knowledge of species, interest in nature, and nature experiences are the factors that best promote interest in and understanding of environmental issues, biodiversity and sustainable life. The aim of this study is to investigate how well student teachers identify common local species, their interest in and ideas about species identification, and their perceptions of the importance of species identification and biodiversity for sustainable development. Totally 456 student teachers for primary schools were tested using an identification test and a questionnaire consisting of fixed and open questions. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used to get a more holistic view of students’ level of knowledge and their preferred learning methods. The student teachers’ ability to identify very common species was low, and only 3 % were able to identify most of the tested species. Experiential learning outdoors was suggested by the majority of students as the most efficient learning method, followed by experiential learning indoors, project work and experimental learning. They looked upon the identification of plants and animals as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ for citizens today and for sustainable development. Likewise, they looked upon biodiversity as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ for sustainable development. Our conclusion is that teaching and learning methods for identification and knowledge of species and for education of biodiversity and sustainable development should always include experiential and project-based methods in authentic environments.

Sustainability is internationally often emphasized as an essential aim of higher education, but more as a principle than on the practical level. This is also obvious in the academic education of primary teachers in Finland. Therefore, it is a great challenge for Finnish teachers to include sustainability in their teaching and everyday life in schools. The aim of this article is to critically analyze why the implementation of sustainability in teacher education is so intricate and to discuss possible solutions with Finland—a country highly valued for its education—as an example. The article reports outcomes from educational policy documents and research on educational, philosophical, scientific and social aspects of sustainability, including evaluation of how sustainability has been implemented in schools and at universities, especially among teacher educators. In addition, the article builds on analyses of comprehensive university strategies and primary school teacher education programs. We found these reasons for the ignoring of sustainability in the Finnish teacher education: sustainability is in conflict with overall trends in society and politics, teacher education takes place at universities and is based on separate academic disciplines. Sustainability is also intricate because it is strongly connected to ecological literacy and it is value dependent. Universities need to overcome these obstacles and become forerunners in the sustainability process.

Sustainability is a complex concept including ecological, economic and social dimensions, which in turn involve several aspects that are interrelated in a complex way, such as cultural, health and political aspects. Systems thinking, which focuses on a system’s interrelated parts, could therefore help people understand the complexity of sustainability. The aim of this study is to analyse student teachers’ level of systems thinking regarding sustainability, especially the ecological dimension, and how they explain the relationship between species identification, biodiversity and sustainability. Nordic student teachers (N = 424) participated in a questionnaire and their open answers were content-analysed and categorised. The results indicate the student teachers’ low level of systems thinking regarding ecological sustainability. About a quarter of them (25.4%) had a basic level including interconnections (13.7%), additional feedback (8.9%) and also behavioural aspects (2.8%), but none of them reached an intermediate or advanced level. The low level of systems thinking could be explained by two main factors: (1) Systems thinking has not been used as an educational method of developing understanding of sustainability in teacher education programmes; and (2) systems thinking is also a result of life experiences; the older ones showing more systems thinking than the younger ones. Therefore, elementary forms of systems thinking should be an educational method already in primary education.

Teachers need knowledge of species and species identification skills for teaching the structure and function of ecosystems, and the principles of biodiversity and its role in sustainability. The aim of this study is to analyze Nordic student teachers’ views on the most efficient methods and strategies to teach and learn species and species identification, and to find some trends about how well their views are reflected in a species identification test. Student teachers in Finland, Norway, and Sweden (N = 426) answered a questionnaire consisting of fixed and open-ended questions, and a species identification test. An analysis of variance, Chi-Square, and t-test were used for quantitative data and an inductive content analysis for qualitative data. Results showed that outdoor teaching and learning methods are more efficient than indoor methods. The majority of student teachers considered outdoor experiential learning with living organisms as the most efficient teaching and learning method. Student teachers who highlighted outdoor experiential learning and outdoor project work as their most efficient methods received significantly better results in the species identification test than the others. Field trips and fieldwork were emphasized as the most important sources in schools and universities, while the Internet was the most important source among media. The student teachers underlined teachers’ expertise in the form of in-depth understanding of subjects and supervising skills for efficient teaching both outdoors and indoors. Therefore, teaching and learning of species and species identification as the practical part of biodiversity and sustainability education is emphasized as an integral part of teacher education programs.

According to recent research, the knowledge of species, interest in nature, and nature experiences arethe factors that best promote interest in and understanding of environmental issues and sustainable life style. However, during the past 20 years the knowledge of species has decreased alarmingly among pupils, but also among their teachers. The aim of this study is to make a survey of student teachers’ level of knowledge of species and of factors that have influenced their interest in and capacity for identifying species. Totally 335 student teachers were tested through a species identification test, a questionnaire, and completing interviews. Pupils in grades 7 and 9 and adults were used as reference groups. Student teachers had very varying levels of knowledge of species. Most of them, however, considered it useful to know the most common species of plants and animals in their local environment. The student teachers who had nature-related hobbies as well as practical nature studies in their education, had a considerably better level of knowledge than the others. More than 25 % of the student teachers, however, had a lower level of knowledge (of species) than the average pupils ingrades 7 and 9.