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about 
sustainability issues, 
ii) knowledge about socio-cultural 
reasons
in sustainability issues, 
iii) chemistry knowledge on the levels of the individual and the society about 
opportunities for 
action 
to steer the worrying trends into a better direction, and 
iv) chemistry knowledge about sustainable 
solution 
perspectives in the future. 
Given the increasing severity of global sustainability problems and the public’s role in solving 
them, upgrading ESD programs in Finnish schools should become a central part of future 
environmental policy efforts at both national and local levels.
In order to achieve the goals of sustainable development, investigations are needed about the 
range of other advisable approaches that chemistry teachers could use when teaching 
sustainable development. To change the world, education that genuinely changes behaviour 
should be found. The best practices should be shared among chemistry teachers. Could 
chemistry lessons be taken outdoors more often? Which topics related to sustainability does 
today’s chemistry teaching cover and which are left uncovered? Which socio-scientific issues 
should be taught at which age? Additional research should focus on the variability of existing 
and experimental pedagogical techniques in ESD in chemistry.
As the culture of chemistry teaching evolves, it would be interesting to study to what extent 
teachers discuss different aspects while teaching ESD. What level do they reach? How is the 
teacher’s identity as a facilitator of a more sustainable future perceived? Can trained teachers 
overcome the challenges related to ESD and SSI in their work? 
Additional research may also focus on the students and their sense of competence in socio-
scientific issues. In which way does the teaching of SSI in chemistry advance students’ 
scientific literacy or moral awareness? Does it empower students to act more responsibly or 
discourage them from doing so? What is the role of school chemistry education in the 
formation of a student’s identity in the long term? More research is required to investigate 
what kind of learning outcomes the IBL-LCA concept supports and what kind of knowledge 
outcomes this type of teaching creates. Subsequent studies could also address the students’ 
argumentation skills outside of the classroom. How do the students talk about products after 
the product life-cycle analysis project? In this thesis, it was found that after the project, at 
least some of the participating students considered their material consumption differently, at 
least for a while.
Future studies should also focus on chemistry education on the vocational or academic levels. 
What kind of adult education promotes an environmentally-literate chemist’s identity – 

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chemists who are ethically and intrinsically motivated in green chemistry practices (Tundo et 
al., 2000)? Do all chemistry teachers gain knowledge about ESD during their training? 
Understanding all of this is central to improving ESD in 21
st
century chemistry classrooms 
and steering our society at large towards sustainable development. Allocating resources to the 
developmental tasks would push chemistry education to more efficiently strive towards 
achieving the most important goal of all: transforming the extensive aims of ESD into actions 
for a more sustainable world. As the challenges in global sustainability are more complex and 
multifaceted than ever before in human history, future citizens need new kinds of skills so that 
they can act differently than previous generations – they need to act more responsibly and 
sustainably as chemists, consumers, parents, voters and decision-makers in this world of 
complex systems. The realisation of chemistry education that supports these skills is also 
essential. There are no excuses for not doing it. With every teacher, student and chemistry 
lesson, the global goal of sustainability is one step closer. 

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