Recently, sustainable development practices have increased attention as climate change and environmental impacts have increased. Interventions to encourage sustainability awareness are developing, so fostering them through education is crucial. Evidence-based studies conducted in this field have suggested the use of different digital tools to promote environmental learning gains and to foster better sustainability awareness among students. Following the PRISMA method, we found 21 articles published between 2013 and 2023 showing an interest in the use of digital tools in environmental education to foster sustainability awareness among learners. Findings indicate that virtual reality tools and climate change topics are the most trending in this research area. Further, the results show a positive impact of the use of digital tools on students’ concern for the sustainability of the planet.

Technology educators often provide activities where pupils design programmed technological solutions (PTS) with various programming materials for developing pupils’ technological knowledge related to PTS and digital technology. However, few studies have investigated how pupils experience these activities. To fill this gap in knowledge, this phenomenographic study explores how pupils experience designing a PTS using BBC Micro:bit and identifies the technological knowledge these pupils need, in terms of critical aspects (i.e., aspects necessary to discern), to successfully solve a real world task—the design and coding of a burglar alarm. The data were gathered from sketches, interviews, and video-recordings of pupils aged 10 and 14. This study shows that the pupils struggled with two intertwined phenomena during the activity: the dual nature of the PTS (i.e., the structure and function) and the BBC Micro:bit material. The findings indicated that the pupils needed to understand what components to use based on their function and how to organise these components so they interacted with a code that used feedback control. That is, the pupils needed to code a conditional statement by combining blocks in the BBC Micro:bit editor. To produce working code, the pupils needed to know what the blocks represent, where to find the blocks in the editor, and how to interpret the shapes of the blocks. The results have implications for teaching technological knowledge, suggesting an importance of addressing these phenomena and critical aspects with respect to developing pupils’ conceptual and procedural knowledge related to designing PTS with BBC Micro:bit.

Designing programmed technological solutions (PTS) with programming materials has become a way to contextualise educational content related to PTS and programming. However, studies show that pupils have difficulties conceptualising central phenomena involved in the process, which affects their ability to design PTS. In order to understand these difficulties, this study investigates pupils’ ways of experiencing the process of solving a real-world task with a programming material. The study takes its point of departure from a previous study that identified two central phenomena, the dual nature (structure and function) of PTS and the BBC micro:bit material, when pupils, aged 10 and 14, were designing a burglar alarm with the BBC micro:bit. The data was revisited with the aim of analysing pupils’ sequential discernment of critical aspects of the phenomena (i.e. aspects necessary to discern in order to understand phenomena), and how this affects how the design process unfolds. The results show that the movement from the real-world context toward the BBC micro:bit context is challenging. Pupils need to be able to connect conditions in the real-world context both to aspects of the dual nature of their PTS, and to aspects of the BBC micro:bit material that represent the dual nature. This suggests the importance of appreciating the BBC micro:bit context and the real-world context in relation to the dual nature of PTS, and of addressing the sequential stages of the process in which aspects of phenomena and their interrelations are emphasised, to help pupils see the PTS in the changing contexts.

Programming has recently become part of Swedish technology education; pupils should now be able to analyse existing programmed technological solutions, and be able to design new ones. Teachers facing this curriculum change need guidance on how to teach and what to address, based on how pupils understand the content. The aim of this study is to investigate pupils’ different ways of understanding programmed technological solutions when analysing their structure and function. Taking a phenomenographic approach, interviews were conducted with pupils aged 11–12. In the interviews, prepared contexts were used: Micro:bit constructions and programmed technological solutions from everyday life. The results show that pupils have different approaches to programmed technological solutions based on what parts are discerned in the prepared contexts, and also that pupils approach the two prepared contexts differently. The parts that are critical to discern in both of the contexts are the physical structure of components in the technological solution, how the components work and what their function is in the solution, as well as the logic in the code and how it controls the components and the flow of information that determines the function of the solution. The discernment of these parts is necessary to transcend the contextual details and generalize the understanding of structure and function in programmed technological solutions. These results have implications for teaching with concrete programming materials, suggesting a need to focus on facilitating discernment of the parts and addressing the similarities and the differences between different contexts in order to reach a generalized understanding.

Environmental challenges continue to intensify globally, highlighting the urgent need to foster Environmental Citizenship (ECn) among younger generations, particularly within higher education. Despite increasing policy emphasis on sustainability education, limited cross-national evidence exists on how students translate environmental awareness into action. This study employs a quantitative, comparative design using survey data from 2,013 higher education students across seven countries (Croatia, Cyprus, France, Italy, Lebanon, Spain, and Sweden). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to validate a reduced Environmental Citizenship Questionnaire (rECQ) and examine students’ motivations, competences, intentions, and behaviors. Results reveal a consistent pattern across countries: while students demonstrate high levels of environmental values (M = 3.54) and attitudes (M = 3.49), as well as strong intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (M ≈ 4.7), their engagement in past environmental actions remains notably low (M = 1.77). Competences and intentions are significantly higher than actual behaviors ( p <.001), indicating a substantial intention–action gap. Correlation analyses further show weak links between past actions and other ECn dimensions, while attitudes, values, and intentions are moderately to strongly interrelated. Cross-country differences highlight stronger motivation and engagement in Cyprus and Croatia, while contextual factors such as family influence play a key role in Lebanon. Overall, the validated 9-factor rECQ demonstrates robust cross-cultural applicability. The findings emphasize the need for higher education institutions to move beyond awareness-based approaches by integrating experiential, action-oriented learning and motivational support mechanisms to effectively translate environmental commitment into sustained behavioral engagement.