Conference Agenda

Under the theme “Knowing and Acting: The changing conditions and potentials of education research,” this symposium explores how different local educational practices engage with global goals of sustainability. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has become a central policy and pedagogical priority across Europe (Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission, 2021). Internationally, ESD is increasingly linked to institutional change, whole institution approaches and innovation in university teaching. Bassen, Schmitt and Stecker (2017) show how universities strategically embed sustainability and document it in rankings. Nevertheless, its implementation in teacher training remains uneven and controversial. By drawing on three projects from Finland, Ireland, and Switzerland, the symposium analyses how sustainability is conceptualised, enacted, and institutionalised in different teacher education systems.

The Finnish “FUTE” project (“Future teacher education for sustainable development”) explores how future teachers are prepared to connect global sustainability challenges to local learning contexts. It investigates the institutional, pedagogical, and cultural conditions that shape the development of sustainability competences and teachers’ capacities for education for sustainable development transformative thinking. Through a combination of surveys, interviews, and participatory methods, FUTE analyses how teacher education can become a site for societal change rather than mere transmission of environmental knowledge.

The Irish “FIRST LEGO League Teacher Guide” for Ireland project at the Dublin City University LEGO Education and Innovation Studio examines how creativity and purposeful play contribute to the sustainability competences of learners and teachers. Using a mixed-methods approach, it connects pedagogical innovation with broader social aims — supporting teachers to act as agents of sustainable change.

The Swiss project “Scientific accompaniment of the implementation of ESD” at the University of Teacher Education Valais evaluates how ESD is anchored institutionally and pedagogically within teacher education. Using course description analyses, qualitative group interviews, and a quantitative student survey, the study examines the multilayered process of integrating sustainability into teacher education.

Together, these studies reveal how local contexts mediate global ambitions: while sustainability is a shared global agenda, its implementation depends on national curricula, institutional priorities, and cultural understandings of teaching. The projects highlight both structural challenges (curricular fragmentation, lack of institutional alignment) and pedagogical opportunities (active learning, cross-disciplinary collaboration).

Methodologically, all three contributions employ mixed methods to integrate multiple perspectives — from policy to practice, from educators to students — and thus illuminate the tensions and synergies between knowing and acting.

The symposium contributes to the ECER 2026 theme by showing how educational research, through empirical depth and comparative dialogue, can enhance our capacity to act responsibly in changing conditions. It invites reflection on how teacher education can move beyond awareness of sustainability to meaningful engagement, shaping educators who can critically and creatively connect local action with global responsibility.

The Future Teacher Education for Sustainable Development (FUTE) project seeks to strengthen the integration of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in teacher education across Finland, Namibia, and Tanzania. A recent study has indicated the gap between policies and practice, impacting the lack of depth and consistency of ESD delivery in teacher education (Supple et al., 2025). In strengthening and implementing the goals of sustainable development, teacher educators in three geographically and culturally distinct regions engage with global frameworks while navigating local realities. This study draws on pre- (N= 51) and post-surveys (N= n.a) that explored teacher educators’ course revision processes to include components of ESD to their teacher education course syllabuses. During the process, teacher educators were divided into groups based on the taught course and were mentored during the process. The focus was on course objectives, content, teaching strategies, teaching and learning facilities, and assessment methods (see also Fischer et al., 2022). The participants were asked to consider ESD in the selected five key areas. Mentoring sessions were held a minimum of three times during a four month’ process in 2025. In addition, the mentees were encouraged to peer-mentor each other across country borders. Findings indicate that at the beginning of the process, the teacher educators expressed interest in embedding the components, especially pedagogical, of ESD in their courses, but the intentions also reveal the difficulty of conceptual precision and what exactly need to be search in practice. During the process the teacher educators would like to have more support on practical implementation, but they appreciated feedback given and role of the mentor in their revision process. In the end of the process teacher educators focused mostly on the teaching strategies and facilities and improved the student-centered pedagogy as well digital and research-based materials. The study increases the theoretical understanding of ESD in higher education and teacher educators' professional development. The results strongly highlight the need for in-service teacher training related to ESD and global challenges such as climate change, well-being, and quality education. The study indicates the teacher educators’ willingness to learn and take account of the ESD components, but less opportunities to implement them. The opportunities relate to teachers’ skills, competences, and institutional policy. It shows how ESD is not merely a curricular addition but a contested space where global discourses meet local practices.

Fischer, D., King, J., Rieckmann, M., Barth, M., Büssing, A., Hemmer, I., & Lindau-Bank, D. (2022). Teacher Education for Sustainable Development: A Review of an Emerging Research Field. Journal of Teacher Education, 73(5), 509–524. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871221105784 Supple, B., Lorenzutti, N., McCullough, K., & Coronel Ortiz, R. M. (2025). Teaching for tomorrow: a qualitative exploration of ESD in initial teacher education across five European universities. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-09-2024-0690

This paper details the rationale, design, and evaluation of the FIRST LEGO League Explore (FLL) Teacher Guide for Ireland (Butler et al., 2022). Developed to help primary teachers implement integrated STEM projects aligned with the new national STEM Curriculum Specification (NCCA, 2025) and the Second National Strategy on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) (Government of Ireland, 2024), the Guide positions FLL Explore (FIRST, 2025) as a hands-on instructional model linking classroom practice to global sustainability challenges. The FLL Explore encourages participants to address authentic, complex, real-world problems using technology. In Ireland, the Teacher Guide translated the ‘SUPERPOWERED’ season, which focused on Energy, into a structured, 14-week, problem-based learning intervention aligned with the Irish Primary curriculum. This alignment transformed the project into a tool for teaching integrated science, technology, engineering, and maths, fostering problem solving, collaboration, and the digital competence of learners. Crucially, by focusing on sustainable and renewable energy, the intervention was designed to nurture children’s conceptual understandings of sustainability and their capacity to act on environmental issues. A mixed-methods evaluation across 16 classrooms examined impacts on children’s STEM attitudes and career aspirations. Quantitative pre- and post-test data revealed no statistically significant change in children’s already highly positive baseline STEM attitudes, underscoring the challenge of measuring short-term affective gains when initial attitudes are favorable. Qualitative teacher interviews indicated that the programme’s problem-based nature enabled both teachers and students to develop deeper understandings of sustainable energy (ESD), which were grounded in real-life application. This study offers significant implications for curriculum implementation strategies, suggesting a need for realistic expectations concerning short-term attitudinal shifts, while underscoring the requirement for sustained, systematic resources to support pedagogical change. Furthermore, it demonstrates how an integrated STEM project can address national ESD goals in a range of ways. First, by embedding sustainability at the heart of the project, ESD was a core component rather than an “add-on”. Second, the hands-on and real-world nature of the project enabled children to be active participants, as opposed to passive recipients of information about ESD. Finally, teachers were supported to transition beyond mere environmental awareness (knowing) to facilitating meaningful engagement and action in ESD (acting). This work contributes to the symposium’s theme by illuminating the tensions between global ambitions and local implementation, particularly within initial primary school curriculum delivery.

Butler, D., Broderick, N., Usher, J., & Moynihan, D. (2022). FIRST LEGO League Explore SUPERPOWERED Teacher Guide for Ireland. The Institution of Engineering and Technology. https://www.theiet.org/ FIRST. (2025). FIRST LEGO League—A Hands-on Approach to STEM Learning. FIRST. https://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/fll Government of Ireland. (2024). ESD to 2030: Second National Strategy on Education for Sustainable Development. Government of Ireland. https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/second-national-strategy-on-education-for-sustainable-development-esd-to-2030-ad1ca48f.pdf NCCA. (2025). Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education Specification—For Primary and Special Schools. NCCA. https://www.curriculumonline.ie/getmedia/70081350-c004-4773-8948-f70b0d4ef554/Primary-STE-and-MATHS-Spec-ENG.pdf

In international higher education discourse, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is increasingly framed as a pedagogical challenge that requires competence-oriented, transformative and interdisciplinary teaching and learning approaches. Research emphasises experience-based and participatory learning formats as central for fostering reflection, value orientation and the ability to act in complex sustainability contexts (Sterling, 2024; Wascher & Theis, 2015). A mixed-methods study was conducted as part of a scientific project on ESD at the University of Teacher Education Valais in Switzerland. The study aimed to analyse the integration of ESD in teaching and to examine its contribution to the development of interdisciplinary competencies among bachelor’s students in primary teacher education. The research design includes a quantitative online survey of second-year students, two group discussions with fourth-semester students, and an ongoing document analysis of course descriptions focusing on ESD and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Results show that students primarily encounter ESD in subject-specific, practice-oriented and life-world-related courses, for example through excursions, lesson planning or the application of the SDGs. Courses with sociological, political-economic or media-ethical perspectives broaden this understanding to include social and cultural dimensions of sustainable development. Quantitatively, students demonstrate medium-high overall ESD competence (M = 2.87, SD = .72). Social competencies such as perspective taking (M = 3.10, SD = .69) and personal reflection (M = 3.08, SD = .80) are particularly pronounced, while technical-methodological competencies, especially anticipation (M = 2.63, SD = .67), are rated lower. Supported by qualitative findings, these lower scores are interpreted not as a loss of competence but as an expression of increasing professional awareness and more critical self-assessment. In line with established ESD competence frameworks (Rieckmann, 2012; UNESCO, 2017; Wiek et al., 2011), the findings indicate that competence development in teacher education is not linear but reflexive and context-dependent. At the same time, structural gaps between higher education and school practice—particularly the limited visibility of ESD in teaching practice—emerge as key challenges for coherent competence development. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between intended curricula, perceived learning experiences and educational practice, and offers implications for curricular development, didactic support and the involvement of practising teachers. Results from the ongoing document analysis will be presented at the conference.

Rieckmann, M. (2012). Future-oriented higher education: Which key competencies should be fostered through university teaching and learning? Futures, 44(2), 127–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2011.09.005 Sterling, S. (2024). Learning and sustainability in dangerous times: The Stephen Sterling reader. Agenda Publishing. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13473649 United Nations Ecucational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2017). Education for sustainable development goals: Learning objectives. UNESCO. Abgerufen am 10. Februar 2024, unter https://doi.org/10.54675/CGBA9153 Wascher, E., & Theis, F. (2015). Kompetenzentwicklung im Bereich Nachhaltigkeit: Am Beispiel der Lernveranstaltung 'Nachhaltige Geldanlagen' (Developing Competencies in Sustainability: The Example of the Seminar 'Sustainable Investments'). Zeitschrift Für Wirtschafts- Und Unternehmensethik - Journal for Business, Economics & Ethics, 16(1), 81–102. https://ideas.repec.org/a/nms/ethics/doi10.1688-zfwu-2015-01-wascher.html Wiek, A., Withycombe, L. & Redman, C. L. (2011). Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development. Sustainability Science, 6(2), 203–218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-011-0132-6