The United Nations 2030 Agenda is a plan designed to encourage prosperity that is respectful of the planet and its inhabitants. The Agenda will help introduce the concept of education for sustainability (EfS) to a wider population in order to promote inter- and trans-disciplinary knowledge about sustainability. Connecting Earth Sciences (ES) with sustainability allows us to deal with the ethical dimensions and the social implications of this field. The belief is that improving the delivery of knowledge around sustainability issues will make visible the potential of ES education as a key component of EfS. The aim of this paper is to understand whether the young Italian ES community has sufficient knowledge of and a shared interest in, sustainability. The conviction is that awareness of these topics among the younger generations is fundamental to building a new pedagogical paradigm. This study shows the results of a survey taken by participants of BeGeo 2021, the Italian national congress dedicated to young geoscientists, held in Napoli in October 2021. The majority of respondents had limited knowledge about sustainability, and only a few had attended academic activities that included these topics. Nonetheless, the importance of sustainability is well recognized and there is a great need to increase the number of activities connected to EfS.

The combined annual Congress of the Italian Geological Society (Società Geologica Italiana, SGI) and the Italian Mineralogical and Petrological Society (Società Italiana di Mineralogia e Petrologia, SIMP), dedicated to Geosciences for a sustainable future, took place in Turin in September 2022. This was an opportunity to critically reflect on the role of geosciences for our society and planet, and the role that geoscientists have to play in the education of citizens, for the prevention of natural hazards and the conservation of cultural and natural heritage. In continuity with our previous work on the awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals among young geoscientists in Italy, the present study attempts to expand the investigated sample to include the entire Italian community of geoscientists. The aim is to highlight: (1) the most widespread opinions on the link between Earth Sciences and the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda; (2) what steps have been taken by Italian Earth Sciences departments for sustainability education and what could be the best strategies to develop sustainability related to geoscience topics. According to 229 answers to a questionnaire sent to congress participants (corresponding to 20% of the total amount), the results highlight that the Italian geocommunity (at least its younger members) has a high awareness of the implications of its work and research with sustainability issues, and, in particular, their responsibility to the environment; notwithstanding this awareness, the level of average familiarity with the 2030 Agenda and its goals is still low. In order to bridge this gap, it is recognized that there is an urgent need for sustainability education efforts in departments and the use of inter- and trans-disciplinary teaching approaches that can educate both students and practitioners to be capable of addressing the challenging issues of today.

This essay is the full paper version of authors’ intervention during the webinar Geoethics without borders. Transdisciplinary visions for sustainability, held in October 13th 2022. The concept of geoethics, initially associated to environmental, social and economic issues inherent to exploration and exploitation of georesources, has turned over the last few years on an educational and political dimension, in order to be introduced outside the geoscience community and to improve the way humans interact responsibly with the Earth’s system. Inspired by the call-for-commitment for a pedagogical and political project towards future sustainable societies made by Peppoloni and Di Capua, as well as by the Bohle’s idea of relating geoethical thinking with the political philosophy, this paper aims to enlarge the geoethical glossary, connecting geoethics to some key terms of ecological philosophy and analyzing the contribution that the related theories can give, with a view to building an educational and political proposal in accordance with the principles of geoethics. The three terms we propose are Haraway’s response-ability, Barad’s intra-action and Ingold’s correspondence. To move beyond the theoretical framework and orient toward educational practices, we suggest in conclusion to consider, alongside the three adjectives outlined by Peppoloni and Di Capua (inclusive, participatory and proactive), the so-called "3-Ts" of environmental education (transformative, transgressive and transdisciplinary) and also a new triad of adjectives (ecological, aesthetic and ecumenical), rooted in the theories we have analyzed.

Although Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Global Citizenship (GDEC) are proposed as complementary in educational policy documents, they are still perceived as interrelated fields but with specificities that tend to depower projects aimed at either domain. The research-training project presented aimed to develop awareness in teachers of different school levels of what ESD and GDEC share, and then proceed with associations to co-design educational programs on global competence. Surveys to assess the starting level and the effectiveness of the diverse interventions are included. The paper presents the outcomes related to teachers’ perceptions (N=219) at the beginning of the training and students’ global competence (N=4.426) before the start of the interventions in schools. Per un’educazione globale. Una ricerca-formazione per integrare sviluppo sostenibile e cittadinanza globale. Sebbene l’Educazione alla Sviluppo Sostenibile (ESS) e alla Cittadinanza Globale (ECG) siano proposte come complementari nei documenti di politiche educative, sono ancora percepite come ambiti interrelati ma con specificità che tendono a depotenziare i progetti mirati all’uno o all’altro campo. Il progetto di ricerca-formazione presentato si propone di sviluppare negli insegnanti di diversi livelli scolastici consapevolezza su ciò che accomuna ESS e ECG, per poi procedere con associazioni ad una co-progettazione di percorsi didattici sulla competenza globale. Sono previste rilevazioni per valutare il livello iniziale e l’efficacia dei diversi interventi. Il contributo presenta gli esiti relativi alla percezione degli insegnanti (N=219) all’inizio del percorso formativo e alla competenza globale degli alunni (N=4.426) prima dell’avvio degli interventi nelle scuole.

We very much appreciate and thank Andrea Fildani and Angela Hessler for their comment