This paper draws on the meta-theory of Critical Realism providing a theoretical basis for the pedagogical approach of Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL) in supporting Education for Environmental Citizenship (EEC). We argue that while there are different configurations of EEC, inducting citizens in decision-making needs satisfies the following criteria: (a) relevant transdisciplinary knowledge, (b) a values orientation toward both the complexity of, and the necessity for, a sustainable world and (c) a confidence for, and commitment to, socio-political action at individual and collective levels. In order to provide a rich perspective about how SSIBL has been operationalized in various national contexts through specific teacher professional development, we present four cases purposefully selected as exemplars from different European countries (the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and Cyprus). The four cases provide powerful scenarios to discuss different ways in which the SSIBL approach can be implemented in teacher education to meet the criteria identified and, thus, promote informed and responsible action in relation to socio-environmental issues. The whole picture shows a consistent theoretical foundation and interesting opportunities for teacher education, as a relevant strategy to prepare teachers in taking risks and integrating SSIBL within school curricula to foster environmental citizenship.

While learning can happen anywhere and everywhere, most educational practices in K-12 are confined within the walls of a classroom and the school; such practices narrowly define learning and exclude the opportunities that an expanded and digitally mediated definition of learning can offer. Augmented reality (AR) technologies offer exciting new opportunities for supporting ubiquitous learning, by superimposing layers of digital information on the real world. The digital augmentation can provide enriched learning experiences, through situating the learning content in authentic contexts and fostering inquiry-based learning. Nonetheless, learning can often be sidestepped as the use of AR technologies becomes a mere fun activity, akin to a treasure hunt. Such challenges indicate the need to provide scaffolded AR environments to support deep learning. These ideas are reflected in the design of the TraceReaders, a platform for enabling location-based mobile learning using augmented reality (AR) technologies. TraceReaders supports the authoring of inquiry-based AR apps, to engage students in evidence-driven reflective inquiry in situ. This paper first describes the theoretical commitments which guided the development of the TraceReaders platform, followed by a description of its design rationale. Two case studies of informal inquiry learning using TraceReaders are then presented: the first one reports on the use of the “Young Archaeologists” TraceReaders app to support primary school students’ historical reasoning, while the second one reports on the “Mystery at the Lake” app to support high school students’ environmental science inquiry. These cases offer the opportunity to discuss the affordances and challenges in using such a scaffolded tool to support location-based AR learning in situ. The discussion concludes with lessons learned from empirical studies about the design and effectiveness of tools like the TraceReaders platform and future steps.

Fostering secondary education students’ responsible citizenship and preparing them to be critically engaged with global socio-environmental challenges are of crucial importance toward achieving sustainability. This paper contributes to the effort to understand how to support students’ scientific literacy for responsible citizenship by reporting on a study evaluating the impact of a learning intervention on biofuels, structured upon Socio-Scientific Inquiry-Based Learning (SSIBL) pedagogy. The participants were 93 students in secondary chemistry education; these students were assigned to the SSIBL group (n = 46) or to the control group (n = 47), which participated in Business-As-Usual (BAU) instruction. Quantitative data were collected with the Global Scientific Literacy Questionnaire (GSLQ) before and after the learning intervention for evaluating students’ perceptions of science as a human endeavor (i.e., nature of science), as well as their personal responsibility and willingness to take action for maintaining a sustainable environment (i.e., values and attitudes). Qualitative data were also collected through video recordings of the SSIBL implementation to examine how the SSIBL instruction was enacted. The findings indicated that, after the implementation, students in the SSIBL condition outperformed their counterparts in the control condition. These findings provide empirical documentation supporting the use of the SSIBL learning intervention to foster students’ scientific literacy for responsible citizenship. The video recordings also shed light on how the SSIBL instruction phases (i.e., Ask, Find out, Act) contributed to the development of students’ responsible citizenship, as a pre-requisite for achieving sustainability.