While different antecedents have been examined to explain peoples’ reactions towards COVID-19, there is only scarce understanding about the role of the subjective closeness and distance to the pandemic. Within the current study, we applied the concept of psychological distance to understand the distance towards COVID-19 and investigated its (1) connection with preventive attitudes and proactive behaviors, (2) context-specific antecedents, and its (3) mediating effect of knowledge on attitudes. Using an online sample from a German quantitative cross-sectional study (N = 395, M = 32.2 years, SD = 13.9 years, 64.3% female) in July 2020, a time with a general low incidence of people infected with Sars-CoV2, we measured relevant socio-psychological constructs addressing COVID-19 and included further information from external sources. Based on a path model, we found geographical distance as a significant predictor of cognitive attitudes towards COVID-19. Furthermore, hypothetical distance (i.e., feeling to be likely affected by COVID-19) predicted not only participants’ affective, cognitive, and behavioral attitudes, but also the installation of a corona warning-app. While several variables affected the different dimensions of psychological distance, hypothetical and geographical distance mediated the effect of knowledge on attitudes. These results underline the role of geographical and hypothetical distance for health-related behaviors and education. For example, people will only comply with preventive measures if they feel geographically concerned by the disease, which is particularly challenging for fast-spreading global diseases such as COVID-19. Therefore, there is a need to clearly communicate the personal risks of diseases and address peoples’ hypothetical distance.

This study investigated factors influencing teachers’ intention and willingness to teach about cancer in the context of the theory of planned behaviour. Because teaching about cancer is mandatory in Germany, we compared n=355 teachers’ intention to teach about cancer under mandatory conditions and their willingness to teach about cancer if they had free choice. Teachers signalled strong intention and a strong willingness to teach about cancer. Teachers did not perceive teaching about cancer to be a burden and strongly considered it to be necessary. Structural equation modelling showed that perceived autonomy was the only significant predictor of teachers’ intention, whereas attitude towards the perceived necessity to teach about cancer, attitude towards the perceived burden of teaching about cancer and social norm were significant predictors of willingness. We attributed these differences to the observation of a ceiling effect for intention but not for willingness. There were systematic differences among the variables predicting teachers’ intention and willingness depending on whether the teachers had personal experience with cancer. Indirect measures yielded insights into which teacher beliefs affected the direct measures. We discuss implications for professional development, such as reducing the burden of teaching about cancer by adequately addressing emotionally-charged classroom situations.

In this paper, we explore Science|Environment|Health, One Health, Planetary Health, and Sustainability/Education for Sustainable Development in the context of the 2030 Agenda as four major frameworks that take a step toward investigating health from different angles to tackle the grand challenges that lie ahead of humanity. In most of these frameworks, the topic of health is no longer limited to the health of humans; it also encompasses the health of ecosystems and planetary systems. Therefore, our ways of teaching and discussing health in science education may need to be adjusted. To this aim, we first shortly characterize the four frameworks and then analyze the concepts of health, the contributing sciences, and the role of values in the frameworks. In our opinion, three main questions have to be settled: (1) Which concept of health lies at the root of each framework? (2) Which sciences should be considered when teaching about health, and what role will they take in an interdisciplinary, integrative approach and under complexity restraints? (3) What is the role of values in these frameworks, and how can the is–ought fallacy be avoided? We finally discuss our findings in light of the concept of two-eyed seeing in science education. This concept helps us disentangle and sharpen the three main questions and draw implications for teaching about health in school science.

Teachers’ beliefs about science teaching vary greatly. To analyze the relationships between teachers’ beliefs and other variables related to teaching and learning, researchers can use the following two options: single item belief models or belief scales. In this study, we compared both models in the context of teachers’ beliefs regarding teaching about cancer. Although both models exhibited a good model fit, each approach had both advantages and disadvantages when we judged the modelling approaches in terms of fulfilling the requirements of common psychometric standards and adequately acknowledging the diversity of different beliefs. We discuss the predictive value of both models and their contribution to planning belief-based interventions for cancer education. We argue that researchers should combine the advantages of single item and scale models when analyzing the diversity of teachers’ beliefs.