Chemistry education for sustainability

Abstract

Preparing students to become able shaping their society in a sustainable way makes education relevant for the learner and the society they live in. The idea of education for sustainability offers a justification for focusing the young generation to become responsible citizens and to allow them developing corresponding skills. All learning domains, and thus also chemistry education, are asked to contribute to this goal. In accordance with this idea, the central question of this chapter is: How can the teaching and learning of chemistry be structured in-line with the idea of education for sustainability in order to make chemistry education more relevant for the learners and the society in which they live and operate? This chapter discusses theoretical underpinnings of sustainability and corresponding education. It describes the relevance of chemistry for sustainability and presents examples from the chemistry classroom, e.g. chemistry learning embedded in socio-scientific issues (SSI)