Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been viewed as education that helps people develop the attitude, skills, and knowledge to make well-informed decisions for the benefit of the present and future generations. It aims at providing quality education through shared understanding and multi-disciplinary approaches in meeting the developmental and environmental apprehension for a sustainable future. Many theorists envisaged ESD as enhancing active involvement of learners both in school and out of school learning initiatives to acquire knowledge about sustainable development issues. The present paper discusses Namibian school teachers’ (n=9) perceptions of ESD and the teachers’ teaching practices using a qualitative-explorative study design. The data were gathered through two semi-structured interviews and lesson observations. The findings have revealed that senior secondary school teachers perceive ESD in terms of knowledge acquisition about the environment in order to use its resources sustainably for the benefit of future generations. The study has also revealed that teachers have positive sentiment toward the inclusion of ESD into the senior secondary school curriculum. Following this, they suggested that ESD should be either implemented as an independent subject or integrated with other existing subjects as a multi-disciplinary subject.

Education for sustainability may be seen as consisting of four dimensions: sensitivity and attitudes toward the environment, awareness and knowledge of the environment, environmentally friendly actions and participation. A questionnaire was drawn up which includes statements concerning all these dimensions and it was filled out by 674 university students from different majors. Data were analysed statistically and a structural equation model was formed. Results indicate that sensitivity toward or awareness of nature is the basis for the enjoyment of nature. The enjoyment of nature is directly positively related to the intention of support pro-environmental activity and to environmental knowledge. Furthermore, it has a mediational effect on ecological knowledge, concern, or the belief of human dominance over nature. Students who possess global concerns do not accept human dominance and this is related to the intent to support environmental activities. Students were found to form groups: “Sorters.” “Occasional actors” and “Resource savers.” Compared to prior research, due to the additional items concerning environmental sensitivity and awareness in our instrument, we were able to uncover the importance of sensitivity to the enjoyment of nature in the complex model of the relationships between awareness, attitudes, knowledge, concerns and intentions. Ecological knowledge leads to global concerns and, therefore, it should be promoted through science education.

This study aims to find higher education students’ perceptions about environmental issues and how the perceptions are related to perceptions of media coverage. This study investigates higher education students’ perceptions of the seriousness of environmental issues and their relation to perceptions of media coverage. Higher education students perceived a global problem, lack of clean water, as most serious environmental problem. Media has had an effect on students’ perceptions on environmental issues: when students perceived the problem as serious they also perceived the information in media concerning it appropriate. Students perceived that the media underestimate and obscure some environmental problems such as biological diversity and global warming. It was concluded that higher education educators need more knowledge of students’, future decision makers’ concerns and perceptions about environmental issues to develop more effective teaching practices in higher education. Through education environmental issues literacy, which is a precursor for engaged protection of the environment, can be fostered. This study offers some insights into higher education students’ perceptions of the media’s role in environmental issues.

The article introduces a science education intervention using life-cycle analysis of consumer products. The intervention aims to promote lower secondary school students’ science career awareness and interest toward science studies. In this study, two lower secondary school teachers planned an intervention on life-cycle analysis, which aimed to be relevant for the students from an individual, societal, and vocational perspective. The study then examined how students perceived the relevance of the intervention, based on classroom observations, students’ life-cycle presentations, questionnaire responses, as well as interviews. The findings indicate that students found life-cycle assessment to be a relevant topic both from an individual and societal perspective. However, findings on vocational relevance were two-fold, as students gained knowledge on different occupations, but this did not seem to directly affect their future career aspirations.

This study helps to clarify the teaching practices used by some Finnish teachers to optimise student learning and to teach problem solving. Eighteen teachers (primary through university) from rural, municipal, and metropolitan schools were interviewed to provide insight into the teaching practices behind Finland’s successful model of equitable education. Of the eighteen teachers interviewed, nine were asked about how they optimise student learning and nine were asked about how they teach problem solving. Of the nine teachers asked about how they optimise learning, four mentioned practices that align with problem-based learning, and all of the teachers asked about how they teach problem solving mentioned practices that align with problem-based learning. A majority of the interviewed teachers stated that they incorporate individual student competencies and prior experiences into lesson design. All eighteen teachers, regardless of interview topic, mentioned practices related to socio-constructivism as a leading theoretical approach, and all eighteen teachers mentioned motivational practices aligned with the self-determination theory. Finnish teachers have autonomy over their teaching practices so there are teachers who do not teach in the ways represented in this study. Implications of these findings are discussed.