Pathways to Sustainability: Examples from Science Teacher Education

Abstract

Why do we need education for sustainability? What is education for sustainability? What are some of the challenges and opportunities a sustainability approach affords? How might a sustainability approach inform science teacher education? This chapter will provide a brief review of the literature on sustainability, environmental education, and education for sustainability, provide a brief history of the concept, and explore how it has been applied in two science teacher education contexts. In addition, by investigating the theoretical and practical challenges of integrating sustainability with the science curriculum in particular, the chapter will provide a basis for understanding the varied approaches taken by other authors in this volume.

1 Why Do We Need Education for Sustainability?

Education for sustainability is rooted in environmental education. In 1977, the first intergovernmental environmental education conference was convened in Tbilisi, Georgia, of the former Soviet Republic. The conference attendees included 265 delegates and 65 representatives and observers. Participants came from 66 states, 2 non-member states, eight United Nations (UN) agencies and programs, 20 international nongovernmental organizations, and three intergovernmental organizations. Organized by the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in collaboration with the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), the conference declaration stated: “Environmental education, properly understood, should constitute a comprehensive lifelong education, one responsive to changes in a rapidly changing world” (UNEP, 1978, p. 24).

Now, more than 40 years later, it is easy to see how rapidly the world has changed. We can cite the rise of the internet, widespread home and office computers, smartphones that bring the world to your fingertips, subscriptions for everything, increased consumption, ubiquitous streaming services, more people living in cities, and more people overall. Despite these changes, a proper understanding of environmental education – much less sustainability education – has yet to take root in many societies. It is fair to say that too many children do not attain a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the environment, society, and our economy. Instead, environmental and sustainability education remain at the margins of most K-12 curricula.

Many educators see the responsibility for environmental and sustainability education as belonging to science teachers. For example, environmental science topics are typically found in state science standards (cf. NYSED, n.d.-a), and in New York State, one of the High School Regents exams is called Living Environment (NYSED, n.d.-b). Yet, science education is often marginalized at the elementary level to emphasize tested subjects, English language arts, and mathematics (Rivera Maulucci, 2010). At the middle and high school levels, science teachers often have curricula with a depth and breadth that affords limited opportunities for addressing environmental education or sustainability topics. As a high school Biology student, since we did not have time to cover environmental science topics in class, I had to read the chapters on my own to prepare for the New York State Regents examination. As a middle school Biology teacher, environmental topics competed with an extensive unit on human biology. I proposed two science electives, Zoology and Sea and Shore, during which students could explore concepts such as habitats, endangered species, water quality, pollution, and conservation. However, since these courses were electives, only students that took these electives benefitted from them.

When environmental issues are raised in a community there are often calls for education as part of the solution to the problem. For example, as Director for Urban Forestry of the Environmental Action Coalition (EAC), I was part of a team of environmental educators and activists that developed an Action Plan for New York City’s Urban Forest (Pirani et al., 1998). The report calculated the extent of NYC’s urban forest, including the number of trees (5.2 million) and the percent of tree cover (16.6%). Other sections extolled the benefits of the urban forest, provided suggestions for trees to plant, and called for four immediate actions (enhance growing conditions, diversify the urban forest, improve service delivery, and manage and restore public woodlands), and four long term actions (establish an Urban Forestry Board, inventory and develop a management plan, increase the total tree population by one million trees, and foster an engaged and knowledgeable public). Another EAC project was called Trees for East Harlem. Working with local community activists, we identified places where trees could be planted, then contacted the NYC Parks Department to request a street tree. The Parks Department would survey the site, and then plant a tree if the site was suitable. We worked with the community activists to pass out flyers about the benefits of the trees and engage in honest conversations with local business owners and community members about how to care for the new trees. Environmental education was central to both initiatives.

In 2007, the NYC parks department announced Mayor Bloomberg’s MillionTreesNYC initiative (MillionTreesNYC, n.d.). Eight years later, in November of 2015, they planted the millionth tree (Coneybeare, 2015) and the third decadal census of NYC street trees in 2015 which engaged many volunteers and emphasized citizen stewardship placed the number of street trees at 666,134 (NYC Parks, 2016). Today, the efforts are noticeable. Every time I pass a new street tree planting or a green swale, I smile. Yet, I would argue that progress with fostering an engaged and knowledgeable public in New York City has lagged far behind. How many New Yorkers walking by a street tree or a tree in one of the city’s parks do so with full knowledge of the benefits the trees provide in the urban environment, including improving air quality and mitigating the urban heat island effect? How many New Yorkers can articulate the policy issues that affect the quality of the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the food they consume? How many New Yorkers commit, beyond compliance, to doing what they can to reduce, reuse, and recycle? Are educators providing students with a comprehensive education that helps them understand environmental and sustainability issues, sift through the misinformation that abounds, and make informed, sustainable decisions in their everyday life? To be clear, I do not blame teachers. Instead, I contend that like the lack of traction around environmental and school reform issues, we need a more comprehensive approach.

This chapter will put forward four key arguments. First, education for sustainability (EfS) needs to be the responsibility of all educators in all subjects, especially in the sciences. Second, educators need a framework and pathways for thinking about integrating sustainability into the curriculum. Third, EfS can help us answer the timeless question, “Why are we learning this?” Finally, educators, researchers, and policymakers must take up the call of EfS seriously so that it becomes impossible for students to graduate from high school without a comprehensive education that also provides a basis for lifelong decisions and choices that foster sustainability.

2 What Is Education for Sustainability?

Both environmental education and EfS have their roots in early studies of nature. Concern for the effects of development and industrialization on the natural environment emphasized conservation, and concern for human health and well-being emphasized social or environmental justice (McCrea, 2006). For example, Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac (1949) helped establish the land ethic of the conservation movement, and Rachel Carson’s, Silent Spring (1962), galvanized the modern environmental movement as she drew a direct link between pesticide use and the loss of songbirds. The Tbilisi conference report (UNEP, 1978) advocated a holistic, interdisciplinary approach to environmental education. According to the authors,

[A]dopting a holistic approach, rooted in a broad interdisciplinary base…recreates an overall perspective which acknowledges the fact that the natural environment and man-made environment are profoundly interdependent. It helps reveal the enduring continuity which links the acts of today to the consequences for tomorrow. It demonstrates the interdependencies among national communities and the need for solidarity among all mankind (UNEP, 1978, p. 24).

Key ideas that we can draw from the Tbilisi report, are the “interdisciplinary” nature of environmental education, as well as the interdependence of the “natural and man-made environment” and “national communities.” Finally, the description calls for education that “links the acts of today to the consequences for tomorrow,” and recognizes the “need for solidarity.” At the same time, this early description of environmental education does not question or problematize individualism (emphasizing freedom of action for individuals) or a rapidly changing world, and it seems to equate natural and man-made environments as if both are equally “good.”

More recently, the United Nations (2002) declared 2004–2015, The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) as part of their Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) initiative. UNESCO (2017, based on Wiek et al., 2011) also set out a bold vision for student learning outcomes. For example, they identify eight competencies that students should develop as part of their education for sustainable development goals: systems thinking, anticipatory, normative, strategic, collaboration, critical thinking, self-awareness, and integrated problem-solving. These competencies are described in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1 UNESCO education for sustainable development competencies

UNESCO (2017) identifies specific learning objectives for each of the Sustainable Development Goals (See Fig. 6.1) that span the cognitive domain (what students should know), socio-emotional domain (what social interaction, communication, and self-reflection skills students should have), and behavioral domain (what students should be able to do).

Fig. 6.1

United Nations sustainable development goals. (From SDG Academy and Creative Commons – Creative Commons)

While at the surface level, the UNESCO competencies and learning objectives seem laudable, there are some concerns and critiques regarding approaches to developing and measuring global competencies. Neoliberal approaches have been critiqued for focusing on global economic and labor concerns; global consciousness approaches have been critiqued for furthering universalistic values that do not account for or challenge imbalances of power; critical approaches are largely theoretical and untested but they raise the concerns that mainstream approaches tend to be transmissive rather than transformative and privilege members of higher socioeconomic groups; and finally, advocacy approaches focus on rights and responsibilities towards other groups or nature but learning from advocacy is hard to measure (Connolly et al., 2019). The authors note that there are regional differences with Europe and Canada favoring global consciousness approaches and the United States and Asia favoring neoliberal approaches. In addition, there are tensions between competency-based approaches, which can focus attention on technical skills, and virtue-based approaches, which are not necessarily universal, that also need to be resolved (Petersen, 2022).

At its heart, ESD and EfS recognize that we need to make changes in how we live to ensure a more viable future for humans and all living things. While many changes need to occur at the macro-level of governments and nations, sustainability education embraces the hope that individuals can participate in that change while simultaneously making a difference at the micro-level. EfS also grapples with the tension between individual and collective action, and struggles to integrate not just human-centered approaches but other aspects of the environment. At the same time, EfS has an array of benefits for students, including enhancing student engagement and motivation, boosting student learning and achievement, improving student behavior and attendance, significantly increasing students’ perceptions of self-efficacy, encouraging students to connect with local and global systems, and helping students gain an appreciation for civic engagement and the democratic process (Cloud, 2014). For teachers, EfS supports “both new and veteran teachers in achieving strong academic outcomes from their students” (Cloud, 2014, p. 4).

Given the wide scope of knowledge, skills, understanding, and competencies educators need to foster across cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioral domains, it is clear that these goals can and should be developed across the curriculum. While the early association of EfS with environmental science meant that it was mostly relegated to science teaching, EfS can and should appear across the curriculum, and the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability allows it to align well with all subject areas, not just science. Furthermore, students need repeated exposure to EfS to fully understand its importance and what they can do to make a difference. EfS is greatly enhanced when taught from the multiple perspectives that different curriculum areas bring. Finally, EfS should afford opportunities for students to engage in different modes of representation, such as visual, written, spoken, and numerical, and provide students with various ways to integrate their learning with local and global action.

To achieve the goals and benefits of EfS, we must move from rhetoric to reality. As Maria Hofman (2015, p. 213) explains, “If one wants to change the society and education, one of the cornerstones to start with is the education and training of already qualified teachers and teacher educators.” Although I argue that sustainability can and should be taught across the curriculum, in the following sections I focus on the challenges and possibilities within science education, specifically.

3 What Are Some of the Challenges of Science Education for Sustainability?

Education for sustainability presents many challenges to science educators that teacher education, professional development, and schools must address. A central challenge for sustainability in science education is that sustainability is an ill-defined and ill-structured concept (Wals & Dillon, 2015). First, there is no consensus about the definition of sustainability, let alone education for sustainability. Most definitions include the idea that we must “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” (Brundtland, 1987) and emphasize the three pillars – economic, social, and ecological. Other definitions of sustainability include a political dimension with nations that are “secure, thriving and peaceful” (cf. Cortese & Rowe, 2016) or a cultural dimension (United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), 2010, p. 3), which “[a]ffirms that culture in all its diversity is needed to respond to the current challenges of humankind.” Furthermore, calls for inclusion of Indigenous perspectives on sustainability invoke attention to gratitude instead of entitlement, and reciprocity instead of consumption (Kimmerer, 2015) For example, Kimmerer notes, “our role as human people is not just to take from the earth, and the role of the earth is not just to provide for our single species” (In Tippett, 2016).

According to Neil Taylor et al. (2015), definitions of sustainability can range from “weak” to “strong.” Weak sustainability definitions focus on anthropocentric (human) needs, economic development, and technological solutions. Strong sustainability definitions focus on ecocentric (natural) needs, preserving ecological integrity, and properly valuing ecosystem services. Without a consensus regarding how to define sustainability, teachers lack a clear vision for sustainability, let alone how they might integrate it into the curriculum. Consequently, education from these different perspectives can take the form of education for sustainable development (ESD), environmental education (EE), or education for sustainability (EfS) (Taylor et al., 2015).

For example, according to UNESCO (2022), ESD “gives learners of all ages the knowledge, skills, values and agency to address interconnected global challenges including climate change, loss of biodiversity, unsustainable use of resources, and inequality.” A definition of EE from the US EPA (2012) states,

Environmental education is a process that allows individuals to explore environmental issues, engage in problem solving, and take action to improve the environment. As a result, individuals develop a deeper understanding of environmental issues and have the skills to make informed and responsible decisions.

Finally, Cloud (2014) defines EfS as,

…a transformative learning process that equips students, teachers, schools, and informal educators with the knowledge and ways of thinking that society needs to achieve economic prosperity and responsible citizenship while restoring the health of the living systems upon which our lives depend.

All three of these definitions recognize the role of problem-solving and decision-making in solving local or global issues or challenges. However, not all explicitly recognize the roles of values (UNESCO, 2022) or ways of thinking (Cloud, 2014) that are required, and not all emphasize the integral importance of “restoring the health of the living systems upon which our lives depend” (Cloud, 2014).

A second difficulty with sustainability education is that sustainability, as a concept, is neither neutral nor value-free (Rogers, 2016). Judy Rogers (p. 217–18) explains that “sustainability is not a thing or an endpoint but rather a way of thinking, talking, writing, and acting in response to an identified and urgent need for transformation and change at the global, regional, and local level.” Rogers explains that imagined futures and proposed changes might be “deeply contested” or even contradictory. For example, individuals, stakeholders, or communities might have different, and even incompatible, ideas about economic prosperity, responsible citizenship, or plans for restoring the health of living systems noted above in Cloud’s (2014) description of education for sustainability. Further evidence of this difficulty can be found in a review of US science standards, completed by Kim A. Kastens and Margaret Turrin in 2006. Kastens and Turrrin (2006) reviewed 49 state science standards and found:

There is little support among state standards developers for the notion that science lessons or science teachers should proactively encourage students to change the nature of their own interactions with the environment, or to seek to bring about such changes in their own family, school or local community (p. 431).

A more recent review of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013), which have been adopted by 20 states and used by 24 states to develop their science standards (NGSS Hub, n.d.), found that the standards emphasize learning about sustainability from a scientific point of view rather than for sustainability, or the types of decisions and actions students could or should take to promote sustainability (Egger et al., 2017).

Given the lack of guidance from state standards, teachers may be concerned that when education for sustainability advocates particular values or solutions to environmental issues, it can walk the line of indoctrination.

For example, the idea that reusing, reducing, and recycling are all actions that in most communities can be viewed as good for individuals, society, and the environment, thus, advocating for these behaviors might not be seen as indoctrination. However, some issues, such as climate change, have become entangled with social and political ideologies that may make it risky for teachers to address these topics in the classroom (see Pfirman & Winckler, this volume, Chap. 19). Other issues, such as the Flint Water Crisis, expose environmental racism, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to ignore the necessary critique of the racist ideologies that allowed the crisis to occur. Although teachers must steer clear of indoctrination in the classroom, or teaching from an uncritical, partisan, or ideological standpoint, dialogic approaches that make it seem like any position is valid might also be untenable (Wals, 2010). Arjen E. Wals describes the paradox encountered by educators who delve into the social aspects of sustainability issues:

On the one hand, there is a deep concern about the state of the planet and a sense of urgency that demands a break with existing unsustainable systems, lifestyles and routines, while on the other, there is a conviction that it is wrong to persuade, influence or even educate people towards pre- and expert-determined ways of thinking and acting.

Wals (2010) is speaking to the ways in which topics like climate change and sustainability have become politicized with “experts” on both sides weighing in on what should be taught or what should be done about it. In this context, educators need to recognize pluralism (multiple ideas about sustainability, none of which can be prescribed), relativism (multiple perspectives on sustainability--the learners, educators, families, communities, local to global, multicultural, multispecies, multidisciplinary approaches), and the role of democracy, agency and self-determination, or “a collaborative search for and engagement in sustainability that is not limited to small elites in society but accessible to all stakeholders, including those who are or feel marginalized” (Wals, 2010, p. 147). Absent clear guidelines for democratic, participatory, agentic approaches that foster good for the entire ecosystem, not just humans, teachers may shy away from teaching about sustainability to avoid controversy in their classroom or school communities.

The third challenge of education for sustainability is its interdisciplinary nature. As noted above, in addition to the three widely recognized pillars of sustainability, ecological, economic, and social dimensions, some educators also recognize a fourth pillar, a political dimension (Taylor et al., 2015) or a cultural dimension (UCLG, 2010). Although the science curriculum deals with ecological systems, many science educators may feel that the economic, social, and political dimensions are beyond the scope of their mandated science curricula. Teachers in the humanities may consider sustainability’s scientific or economic aspects to be beyond their responsibility and areas of expertise. Thus, many teachers may feel ill-prepared to teach the interdisciplinary content sustainability education requires (see also Pfirman and Winckler) and may lack the flexibility to teach interdisciplinary curricula given accountability regimes, such as strict curriculum mapping or high-stakes tests.

Fourth, there is a level of indeterminacy to sustainability. What we see as sustainable now might not be viewed as sustainable in the future, and what we see as sustainable in one context might not be sustainable in another (Wals, 2010). Thus, the complexity and urgency of sustainability education impedes the development of a universal vision for both content and process that other content areas may have. As a result, modes of integrating sustainability topics into the science curriculum can vary. For example, educators can teach about sustainability (about recycling), for sustainability (why recycle and how to recycle), or sustainable education, living and learning more sustainably (engaging in recycling audits and school or community-based recycling programs) (See Sterling, 2003, examples added).

Fifth, as with justice-oriented curricula, teachers may find instilling a sense of hope challenging when environmental, racial, and other equity issues seem intractable (Davis & Shaeffer, 2019). Taylor et al. (2015, p. 6) explain, “All too often, sustainability issues are presented and discussed solely as a series of problems, and while it is important to acknowledge that problems do exist, an overemphasis on them can leave children feeling severely disempowered.” On the other hand, “[a]ction-oriented projects allow [children] to see that change at a community level is possible and are vital to keeping young people engaged with sustainability issues and positive about the future” (Taylor et al., 2015, p. 6).

Finally, teachers may struggle to find the best way to integrate sustainability with the curriculum, whether with science or another content area. For example, curriculum integration efforts for multicultural education have been critiqued for focusing on “heroes and holidays” in ways that tokenize or essentialize the contributions of other racial, ethnic, or cultural groups” (Lee et al., 2002). Drawing on Banks’ (1995) Typology for Curriculum Integration developed for multicultural education, I propose five pathways for the integration of sustainability (see Fig. 6.2).

Fig. 6.2

Five approaches to integrating sustainability

Given the range of curricula and goals and purposes of education, I purposely do not attach levels that might imply that some approaches are better or more preferred than others. In some courses, content specificity and limited time may mean that educators can only model sustainability. Some ways to model sustainability include going paperless, bringing a compost bin to class, making sure the class knows how to recycle properly, or turning lights off when everyone leaves the room.

On the other hand, course content might allow the entire curriculum to be transformed by nesting it within a meaningful sustainability context (See Snow, this volume, Chap. 8). Some units or lessons might benefit from adding resources (i.e., texts, images, video clips) about sustainability. Other units or lessons might benefit from including the special contributions of Indigenous scholars, traditional ecological knowledge, or local case studies (see Heskel & Mergenthal, this volume, Chap. 15. For example, case studies of the Flint Water Crisis (Davis & Shaeffer, 2019) or the Vieques National Wildlife Reserve (Withers, 2013) can provide a more personal context or sense of urgency for sustainability. While the Flint Water crisis has received international attention, the struggles for sustainability and environmental justice in Vieques, Puerto Rico, a former United States military site, are lesser-known. Vieques is an island off the coast of Puerto Rico with “high ecological values and a toxic legacy including unexploded ordnances as a result of the area’s former use as a naval bombing range” (Guzman et al., 2020, p. 13). Finally, in some cases, students can go out into the real world and engage directly with sustainability issues through social action, such as planting a school garden, conducting a BioBlitz (see O’Donnell & Brundage, this volume, Chap. 11) or engaging in community-activism to address local air quality concerns (Morales-Doyle, 2017).

4 What Are Some of the Possibilities of Science Teacher Education for Sustainability?

Given calls for integrating sustainability, science teachers require education and professional development to understand the economic, political, social, moral, and technical dimensions of sustainability and how to incorporate them into the science curriculum (Stratton et al., 2015). As noted by Stratton and co-authors (2015), quality teacher education for sustainability requires: (1) a holistic approach; (2) place-based methods; (3) connections between the natural and built world; (4) conceptual frameworks for educating for sustainability; (5) development of sustainability literacy; (6) transformative pedagogical approaches; and (7) links to climate change. Table 6.2 provides descriptions of each of these themes.

Table 6.2 Quality sustainability teacher education themes

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013), a United States science education reform document that provides a consensus vision for the development of disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and cross-cutting themes across grades K-12, includes a subcategory called “human sustainability (see NGSS Lead States, 2013, p. 24).

The performance standards associated with this topic, which falls under Earth and Space sciences, include the following:

• create a computational simulation to illustrate the relationships among management of natural resources, the sustainability of human populations, and biodiversity,

• evaluate competing design solutions for developing, managing, and utilizing energy and mineral resources based on cost-benefit ratios (NGSS Lead States, 2013, p. 287).

Egger et al. (2017) note that many teachers may not be prepared through the undergraduate curriculum to teach the sustainability content and Earth systems thinking required by the NGSS standards.

Feinstein and Kirchgasler (2015) provide an in-depth review and critique of the explicit and implicit ways that the NGSS Standards address sustainability. For example, they note that the standards mainly provide a “technology-centered perspective” that advances the view that technological solutions can address most environmental problems rather than a more in-depth exploration of the ethical and political dimensions of sustainability. In particular, they raise the concern that:

...science education will advance an oversimplified idea of sustainability that diminishes its social and ethical dimensions, exaggerating the role of technology and the importance of technical expertise at the expense of non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines and nontechnical expertise. Rather than supporting a generation of students to engage with science in realistic and productive ways as they address sustainability challenges, this approach might lead students to systematically misinterpret and underestimate the challenges that confront their local, regional, and global communities (Feinstein & Kirchgasler., 2015, p. 123).

The authors identify three troubling themes: (1) universalism (seeing humanity as a single indivisible element), (2) scientism (seeing science as the type of knowledge that is most relevant to sustainability), and (3) technocentrism (seeing technical knowledge and technological solutions as the best way to address sustainability issues). Together, these troubling approaches can lead to students developing a “technology-centered perspective called ecological modernization that defines sustainability as a set of global problems affecting all humans equally and solvable through the application of science and technology” (p. 121).

5 What Are Some Examples of Teacher Education for Sustainability?

The following sections describe two examples of science teacher education for sustainability. The first example explores an in-class set of activities that demonstrate how I introduce the EfS Curriculum Standards (articulated below) to students and help them explore how and why to integrate sustainability into science and engineering curricula. The second example describes a case study from the Summer STEM Teaching Experiences for Undergraduates (TEU) program that incorporated sustainability as a central element of the science curriculum that TEU interns designed for high school youth attending the program.

5.1 Introducing and Justifying the Need for EfS Standards

I teach two science pedagogical methods courses incorporating the EfS Standards and the Cloud Institute EfS Framework. In both classes, students do a science or engineering activity, and then they redo the activity through a sustainability pathway of their choice. For example, in one class that focuses on integrating science and engineering, students are presented with a pile of Keva planks, a toy car, and an engineering challenge to build a bridge that spans a 20-cm distance. While students are working in groups on this challenge, I notice them looking at other groups to see how they are solving the problem. There is a competitive edge and a focus on finding a solution, not why the problem might be important or to whom. Students find the activity fun, challenging, collaborative, inquiry-based, constructivist, and creative. Yet, they struggle to see clear connections to specific science content. As they reflect on the extent to which the activity was inclusive, culturally relevant, or meaningful, they realize that without clear instructor intent, these aspects might happen naturally, but they might not.

Next, we shift to discussing some of the struggles with integrating engineering in K-12 science classrooms. I present several challenges, including standardized science curricula and balancing teaching science deeply alongside engineering design. We also discuss student diversity and the different needs teachers must address for students of varying grade level, age, gender, ethnicity, language, culture, and ability. We discuss the difficulties of finding good engineering curricula that develop strong mathematics or science content knowledge and practices and the challenge of having adequate resources. Some schools may have plentiful resources for integrating engineering and can offer robotics classes, while others may lack resources altogether. Finally, I note that with the emphasis on STEM, some students may have had extensive experiences with engineering, and some may have had little to none. Then, I ask the class to turn and talk to a partner to identify additional challenges. After their shared talk, we cogenerate a list of additional challenges for students and teachers when integrating engineering with the science curriculum (see Table 6.3). While the challenges the participants identify are nested within the context of integrating engineering, many are relevant to integrating sustainability. For example, lack of repeated exposure, standardized curricula, student diversity, inadequate resources, and student experience levels can all present challenges for integrating sustainability. An emphasis on English language arts, test prep mandates, and lack of testing incentives for sustainability can also impact the time available for teaching for sustainability.

Table 6.3 Additional challenges for integrating engineering and science education

At the end of this discussion, I tell students I see a bigger problem. To me, the purpose of engineering presents a more significant problem. Why do we want students to learn about engineering in the first place? To have fun? To do something hands-on? For them to be introduced to lucrative careers? To contribute to a consumer culture? To solve problems? To help people? To reduce poverty? To build sustainable cities? To restore habitats and ecosystems? To save the planet? I raise these questions and then propose the EfS Standards as the reason why.

The EfS Standards from the United States Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development (USPESD, 2009) specify three goals. Students should be able to:

• 1. understand and apply “the basic concepts of sustainability (i.e., meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs)” (EfS Standard 1, USPESD, 2009, p. 3).

• 2. …recognize the concept of sustainability as a dynamic condition characterized by the interdependency among ecological, economic, and social systems and how these interconnected systems affect individual and societal well-being. They develop an understanding of the human connection to and interdependence with the natural world (EfS Standard 2, USPESD, 2009, p. 3).

• 3. …develop a multidisciplinary approach to learning the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to continuously improve the health and well-being of present and future generations, via both personal and collective decisions and actions. They are able to envision a world that is sustainable, along with the primary changes that would need to be made by individuals, local communities, and countries in order to achieve this (EfS Standard 3, USPESD, 2009, p. 3).

After presenting these three goals, I share the nine core content standards of the Cloud Institute (Cloud, 2012). Table 6.4 provides a brief description of each of the core content standards.

Table 6.4 Cloud Institute core content standards/pathways and performance indicators

Students look at the titles and descriptions and tell me where they see science, mathematics, and other curriculum areas. Then, I send them back to their groups to build another bridge. They have the same constraint; it must span a 20-cm divide. However, now they must discuss the pathways with their groups, choose a particular sustainability pathway, and build a new bridge that addresses their sustainability context. The room buzzes with excitement and creativity. Students do not look around at other groups because everyone is doing something different.

When the students finish building, they share their sustainability context and show their bridges, and what a difference! Before, they were just constructing a bridge. Now, students care about who the bridge is for, how the bridge will be used, and what it connects. Now, they care about the sturdiness of the bridge, and they try to use fewer resources to build it. There are parks with swings, slides, and monkey bars, bike lanes, pedestrian paths, safety rails, signs to highlight a sense of place, and windmills to produce the energy to light the bridges (see Table 6.5).

Table 6.5 Sustainable bridge building projects

In our discussion, I ask students who is the judge of the success of their bridge-building. They realize that they are now the judges. They recognize that the criteria for success now depend on the sustainability pathway they choose. They see that although the groups chose different sustainability pathways, all the groups converged on the idea of a multi-purpose bridge for the community. All of them had bike paths!

Students see the value of adding a sustainability pathway to the engineering activity. One student noted that the sustainability pathway provided a compelling answer for the question, “Why are we doing this?” Students also see that sustainability pathways can expand their ideas about the meaning and relevance of building bridges. For example, a student noted:

When we were just building a bridge, we just focused on the bridge itself. Once we had the freedom to look at all the different sustainability pathways, we could decide what the bridge was for and what else to include in our bridge area, which really changed up what we were doing. At first, we were just trying to build a good bridge. Now, we were all trying to put a purpose to this bridgework, and we started to think about what’s on the other side of it, what are we actually using this bridge for.

Another student explained that the pathways allow students to bring in cultural relevance. For example, some students might care about the local context, but others might care more about the global aspects of sustainability.

By providing sustainability pathways, each group’s vision for bridge-building goes beyond just spanning a 20-cm divide. Students have nine different ways to engage and connect with the content or activity set before them (see Table 6.4). Students have multiple ways to bring their knowledge, interests, and experiences into the classroom. The curriculum can also foster communication around issues that have significance beyond the main course of study. In addition, presenting the sustainability pathways attends to four of the seven components of quality teacher education for sustainability identified by Stratton et al. (2015) (see Table 6.2). The pathways incorporate a holistic approach to sustainability and provide a clear conceptual framework for EfS. Students also consider place-based concerns and draw explicit connections between the natural and built world. The possibilities and connections afforded by the pathways are rich and meaningful and this was just one activity.

Teacher educators are responsible for presenting EfS Standards to teacher candidates, but simply presenting them is not sufficient. Pre-service teachers also need opportunities to develop and implement curricula drawing on EfS Standards to solidify their ability to teach for sustainability. The following section describes a project where undergraduates develop and teach sustainability curricula in science. I ask the following questions: What does it mean to engage preservice teachers in learning about sustainability? How do they envision planning and teaching about sustainability? What connections do they make between sustainability and the science curriculum?

5.2 Summer STEM Teaching Experiences for Undergraduates Program

The Summer STEM Teaching Experiences for Undergraduates from Liberal Arts Institutions (TEU) program is developing and testing a model program that provides undergraduate STEM majors with an immersive summer experience in secondary mathematics (Math TEU) or science teaching (Science TEU). The model integrates a high-quality, discipline-specific pedagogy course with an urban teaching practicum and mentoring from experienced science teachers. A college in the northeast hosted the Science TEU Program in Summer 2017. The science pedagogy course included science education standards, science lesson planning, place-based education, sustainability standards, and aspects of classroom management. The Science TEU interns (Science TEUs) taught two cohorts of rising tenth-grade high school students from a local magnet school who took summer enrichment courses in science and writing. Attendance was required for the high school students, and they had to complete final presentations to obtain credit. The summer science enrichment course focused on river ecology, water quality, and sustainability. The high school students visited and sampled a local river and brought the samples back to the college laboratories where they analyzed them. Alongside the river curriculum, as part of the approach advocated by the instructor of the pedagogy course, the Science TEUs developed additional lessons to augment students’ understanding of sustainability. High school students presented their findings by the end of the session. This chapter describes a two-week sustainability curriculum unit developed and implemented by one team of Science TEUs. The analysis shows the challenges and possibilities of developing and implementing a high-quality sustainability curriculum.

The course begins with a river study. The high school students put on waders to explore a local brook in their community. They gather samples to investigate macroinvertebrates, turbidity, and coliforms (see Figs. 6.3 and 6.4). The students complete their analyses and then prepare group presentations for the final day of their two-week session. The Science TEUs are responsible for leading students in these investigations and developing lessons to support students’ understanding of river ecology, sustainability, and scientific communication. After teaching the first cohort of students, the Science TEUs have the opportunity to revise and reteach their curriculum to the second cohort of students.

Fig. 6.3

High school students collecting macroinvertebrate samples

Fig. 6.4

A TEU intern helps students collect macroinvertebrates

During Summer 2017, I spent 2 days on-site visiting the Science TEU program, observing lessons, interviewing TEU interns and their mentors, and collecting other qualitative data. In addition, the TEU interns shared their curriculum development folders and samples of students’ work. Thus, data include direct observations of teaching sessions, lesson plans, samples of student work, and other artifacts, notes from debriefing sessions with mentor teachers and team meetings with the science teacher educator, as well as interviews with TEUs, mentor teachers, college science faculty, and the director of the Science TEU program.

I used a comparative case study approach (Yin, 2008) to develop a detailed understanding of the impacts of the seminar on the development of the TEU interns. I compiled data for each case study team into a single case record (Yin, 2008). The data were then analyzed using open coding methods, noting distinct themes or categories in the data, followed by axial coding to determine the representativeness of the themes and possible relationships between them (Huberman & Miles, 1994). I looked for within-case patterns and themes and then compared patterns and themes across cases (Yin, 2008). I also probed the data for the seven themes outlined by Stratton et al. (2015) (see Table 6.2). For this chapter, I selected a case that best represented some of the tensions in developing sustainability curricula, especially when the curriculum developers are: (1) novice teachers, (2) they are new to place-based education, issues of sustainability, and sustainability standards; and (3) their goal was to integrate sustainability with an existing curriculum.

The team consisted of three STEM undergraduates. Anna (pseudonym)¹ was a Senior majoring in Environmental Analysis and Chemistry. She planned to teach in the Fall and applied to the program out of a deep commitment to science, justice, and a desire to work for science literacy. Anna had prior experience working with high school youth through community gardening and college access programs. Rina was a Junior majoring in Computer Science. Rina was exploring teaching as a meaningful and purposeful career. She looked forward to focusing on theory (through the pedagogy course) and experiential learning (through the practicum). Rina had prior experience with tutoring students. Lee was a sophomore majoring in Biology. He was attracted to the TEU program to improve his ability to design lessons, manage laboratory sessions, and incorporate relevant pedagogical methods. He had prior experience as a Teaching Assistant for an undergraduate Chemistry Lab.

5.3 How Do the TEU Interns Envision Planning and Teaching About Sustainability?

The Science TEU team took up the challenge of developing a two-week sustainability curriculum and river study. Furthermore, between Session I and Session II, opportunities to revise the unit plans provided avenues for improving instruction, content delivery, questioning, activity structure, and smoother transitions between activities. Yet, in analyzing their curriculum materials, I noticed they seemed to have two parallel streams of activities loosely connected by an overarching umbrella of sustainability. Thus, the curriculum lacked some thick connections that would have helped create a more cohesive sustainability curriculum. The first stream, shown in Fig. 6.5, focused on the river curriculum. Students were introduced to the river, they learned about the Healthy Rivers Program and macroinvertebrate, turbidity, and coliform tests for water quality. They also collected field specimens, conducted the tests in the college labs, analyzed the data, prepared presentation slides, and gave final presentations. Since the high school students were taking the course for credit, these aspects of the curriculum were required, especially the final presentations.

Fig. 6.5

The river curriculum

The second curriculum stream, shown in Fig. 6.6, focused on sustainability topics. The TEU interns prepared lessons to help students explore their relationship to nature, including how Indigenous cultures relate to the land. Students engaged in a role play about greenhouse gases and their effects on the atmosphere and learned about global warming and its causes. In subsequent lessons, students watched the Story of Stuff (Leonard et al., 2007), learned about the Amazon rainforest, conducted an endangered species simulation, learned about the Flint, Michigan Water Crisis, discussed redlining in the local community and environmental justice, followed by a power mapping activity where the HS students identified a goal, capacities, stakeholders, target, and tactics for a chosen environmental issue in their community.

Fig. 6.6

The sustainability curriculum

As I mapped out the curriculum, I could see that for the high school students, the two streams might seem rather disjunct. Furthermore, the sustainability curriculum seemed to provide a crash course in various environmental topics rather than a cohesive curriculum that could support students in their analysis of the river samples or deepen their understanding of the implications for water quality, and the important role of sustainability in water resource management. At the same time, when I coded the activities for the seven themes identified by Stratton et al. (2015), I noticed that the two curricular streams collectively addressed all seven themes (see Table 6.6).

Table 6.6 Mapping the river and sustainability curriculum to sustainability education themes

The River Curriculum addressed five out of the seven themes but lacked a clear conceptual framework for EfS and a connection to climate change. Since having a clear sustainability pathway can help justify why students are learning about something, identifying these gaps can help improve the curriculum. Although the sustainability curriculum had activities that addressed all seven themes, as noted earlier, the connections between many of them were thin, which lessened the overall cohesiveness of the curriculum for the high school students.

A particular strength of the river curriculum was the place-based river study. According to Sobel, (2004, p. 6) place-based curricula “emphasiz[e] hands-on, real-world learning experiences, [and] this approach to education increases academic achievement, helps students develop stronger ties to their community, enhances students’ appreciation for the natural world, and creates a heightened commitment to serving as active, contributing citizens.” However, one of the challenges to implementing place-based curricula in the program was that the TEU interns came from all over the country. They had to develop a quick understanding of the local area’s cultural, historical, and ecological history, including science content knowledge about the river, the ecosystem, local plants, history, management, human uses, and wildlife macroinvertebrates, microbiology. A strength of the sustainability curriculum was that the TEU interns had a strong grounding in sustainability concepts, whether from prior college study or through the pedagogy course. At the same time, connections between the place-based study of the river and the sustainability curriculum could have been stronger and made more explicit.

5.4 What Are Some Recommendations for Improving the Sustainability Curriculum?

In analyzing this case study and others, several recommendations to improve EfS in the program focus on better integrating sustainability with the river study, drawing more strategically on the TEU interns’ science backgrounds, and enhancing student engagement. First, the TEU interns’ initial visit to the brook occurred with the high school students. Bringing the TEU interns to the brook during the first 2 weeks of the pedagogy course before they went with the high school students would allow them to learn about the physics, chemistry, and biology of the river and build their local knowledge of the river. The TEU interns would be able to explore the sampling techniques and relevant sustainability connections. The inclusion of two investigation sites, the brook and a river in another community that the high school students come from would engage more of the students in studying their local community (a way to increase relevance and engagement) and allow the HS students to engage in comparative analysis. Finally, the TEU interns should develop a sustainability curriculum that features the river study as a central component, but then expands students’ learning to the physics, chemistry, and biology concepts underlying sustainability of river ecosystems, as well as the social, historical, and political issues of land and water use and urban development. The TEU interns did not feel that their backgrounds in their major, particularly those with Physics backgrounds, had strong connections to the curriculum they were teaching. Some Physics majors even thought that if they knew this in advance, they might not have applied to the program because they lacked the expertise to teach about river ecosystems or sustainability. However, the physics of rivers can be studied in the context of fluid dynamics or hydrostatic pressure to name a few examples, and they could make authentic connections to sustainability with these topics.

The bulk of the pedagogy I observed and noted in the sustainability unit for this case-study team was discourse-based, discussing sustainability topics such as red-lining, ocean ecosystems, and rain forests, or watching video clips and analyzing them. One way to improve student engagement would be to center the NGSS science and engineering practices (NGSS Lead States, 2013) to convey a clear sense of the nature of science and engineering to the high school students. The science and engineering practices include: (1) asking questions and defining problems; (2) developing and using models; (3) planning and carrying out investigations; (4) analyzing and interpreting data; (5) using mathematics and computational thinking; (6) constructing explanations and designing solutions; (7) engaging in argument from evidence; (8) obtaining, evaluating and communicating information. The TEU interns could build the curriculum around EfS as the goal and the scientific and engineering practices as the method to achieve EfS. This approach would enable the TEU interns to enact a central element of NGSS reforms and develop a curriculum that addresses the full set of scientific and engineering practices and sustainability in a more coherent way.

6 Concluding Thoughts on Education for Sustainability

As noted earlier, a key challenge for EfS includes integrating sustainability with the existing curriculum, whether it be science or another content area. Just as the balance between science and engineering can be uneven, the balance between science and sustainability can also be uneven. Furthermore, the siloed nature of subjects particularly in the upper grades often creates barriers to the types of interdisciplinary learning that sustainability concepts require. One way to support preservice and inservice teachers in developing a more cohesive approach would be to construct a checklist drawing on the seven themes developed by Stratton et al. (2015) (see Table 6.6) to identify and assess the components of sustainability in curriculum units. However, addressing all seven sustainability themes is not necessarily the goal. Instead, the goal is to clarify which themes they address, how and why they address them, and their rationale for not including other themes.

Education for sustainability is complex, draws on multiple disciplines and perspectives, and helps foster an array of highly desirable competencies for students that are urgently needed to address the myriad local and global sustainability issues that surround us. EfS helps bring meaning and connection and the answer to the timeless question of, “Why are we learning this?” Given its broad scope, EfS needs to be the responsibility of all educators in all subjects, but especially in the sciences. At the same time educators need clear frameworks and pathways for thinking about how to integrate sustainability into the curriculum. We need to move beyond rhetoric and fragmented action to serious and concerted efforts on the part of educators, researchers, and policymakers so that it becomes impossible for students to graduate from high school or college without a comprehensive education that also provides a basis for lifelong decisions and choices that foster sustainability locally and globally.