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1. INTRODUCTION: RATIONALE AND PURPOSE 
Sustainable development has become a central educational objective during the past decades. 
Despite a huge amount of scientific research and multiple action initiatives, the state of the 
Earth is more than worrying. The enormous global sustainability challenges facing individuals 
and societies are becoming increasingly complex. 
In terms of sustainable development, there is a need to improve the state of chemistry 
education. Chemistry is a school subject and a field of technology which significantly 
contributes to the direction of development. As a science, chemistry can help people to better 
understand sustainability issues and create more scientifically literate consumers, parents, 
voters, and decision-makers. Scientifically literate people can push chemistry itself further to 
develop more sustainable practices. Besides scientifically literate citizens, the world also still 
needs more environmentally literate chemists who are driven by sustainable values. After all, 
it is the chemists who design the principles of the life-cycles of products and materials. Thus, 
holistic chemistry skills urgently need to evolve towards sustainability on all levels of society. 
As Zoller (2012) describes: 
”
Chemistry and science literacy for sustainability means developing the capability of 
evaluative system thinking in the context of science, technology, environment, and society, 
which in turn requires the development of students’ higher-order cognitive skills, system 
critical thinking, question-asking, decision-making, and problem solving
.”
Presently, one of the main obstacles to this aim and one of the challenges in chemistry 
education is that students and teachers rarely associate chemistry with sustainability or ethical 
issues. The application of sustainability issues in chemistry lessons appears to be rather rare in 
many countries. Chemistry teachers seem to be lacking in both the knowledge about 
education for sustainable development (ESD) and the relevant pedagogical skills. 
In order to support more sustainable citizenship, chemistry educators must attain cross-
disciplinary 21
st
century skills. These include such skills as environmental literacy, life-cycle 
thinking, competence to take action on socio-scientific issues (SSI), argumentation skills and 
active citizenship. Novel teaching methods involve cross-curricular and inquiry-based social 
and societal collaboration. A holistic understanding of complex systems is also a new and 
necessary part of basic education. Besides supporting more sustainable citizenship, more 
meaningful studying contents and methods are of key importance in increasing the students’ 
interest in understanding and studying chemistry. Education for sustainable development is a 
means to make the subject of chemistry more interesting to students. 
The main purpose of this thesis is to improve the state of education for sustainable 
development in chemistry through holistic approaches, i.e., cross-curricular, socio-
constructivist and student-centred pedagogies and context-based SSI. The goal is to promote a 
certain understanding and certain values and skills in chemistry education, which relate to 
coping and solving acute environmental issues.

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This dissertation represents literature on sustainable development in chemistry technology and 
education. It empirically describes ESD concepts created by chemistry teachers. Students’ 
life-cycle thinking, active participation and argumentation skills, as well as their attitudes 
towards studying chemistry, are also empirically studied. Finally, the focus is placed on the 
theoretical dimensions of holistic and inquiry-based ESD in chemistry. 

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