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This book examines how educators internationally can better understand the role of education as a public good designed to nurture peace, tolerance, sustainable livelihoods and human fulfilment. Bringing together empirical and theoretical perspectives, this insightful text develops new understandings of education for sustainable development and global citizenship (ESD/GC) and illustrates how these might impact on educational research, policy and practice. The text recognizes the ESD/GC as pivotal to the universal ambitions of UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals, and focuses on the role of teachers and teacher educators in delivering the appropriate educational response to promote equity and sustainability. Chapters explore factors including curriculum design, values and assessment in teacher education, and consider how each and every learner can be guaranteed an understanding of their role in promoting a just and sustainable global society. This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers, school leaders, practitioners, policy makers and students in the fields of education, teacher education and sustainability.

This book examines how educators internationally can better understand the role of education as a public good designed to nurture peace, tolerance, sustainable livelihoods and human fulfilment. Bringing together empirical and theoretical perspectives, this insightful text develops new understandings of education for sustainable development and global citizenship (ESD/GC) and illustrates how these might impact on educational research, policy and practice. The text recognizes the ESD/GC as pivotal to the universal ambitions of UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals, and focuses on the role of teachers and teacher educators in delivering the appropriate educational response to promote equity and sustainability. Chapters explore factors including curriculum design, values and assessment in teacher education, and consider how each and every learner can be guaranteed an understanding of their role in promoting a just and sustainable global society. This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers, school leaders, practitioners, policy makers and students in the fields of education, teacher education and sustainability.

A newly developed articulated through‐the‐scope traction device, TRACMOTION, has been used clinically for endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD). However, there are few reports on the characteristics of this device and the lesion types for which it is most effective. Therefore, we evaluated its optimal use, efficacy, and safety clinically in animals. Subsequently, we confirmed the safety and efficacy of ESD using this device in humans. Two live swine were used; one underwent conventional ESD (C‐ESD) and the other traction‐assisted ESD (T‐ESD). To examine the traction effect at each resection site, three ESD ulcers (greater curvature/anterior wall/posterior wall) with a diameter of approximately 40 mm were created in each swine. Based on our preliminary experiments, scissor‐type and needle‐type knives were used in the T‐ESD and C‐ESD groups, respectively. The primary endpoint was the resection speed, and the secondary endpoint was the degree of muscle layer damage. T‐ESD was faster than C‐ESD on the posterior wall, similar to the greater curvature, and T‐ESD was slower than C‐ESD on the anterior wall. There were no cases of intraoperative perforations. Obvious muscle layer damage was observed in post‐C‐ESD wounds on the anterior wall. The submucosal layer was retained in all post‐T‐ESD wounds. Although this study showed that ESD with TRACMOTION may be safe and effective, it is necessary to consider that it may be unsuitable for some lesions. This may be due to device characteristics and requires further validation.

This article shares the first author’s experiences at a high school in Fez, Morocco, while implementing education for sustainable development (ESD) in the curriculum. In this action research project, the researcher aimed to embed ESD in the current school curriculum and evaluate whether the strategies and methods used affected the students’ attitudes and behaviour towards the environment. A mixed-methods approach was used to collect data. A questionnaire was administered to 60 high school students aged between 16 and 18 immediately after the ESD training. In-depth interviews were then conducted with 44 respondents who completed the questionnaire. The results of the study suggest that formal education, class activities and extracurricular activities can contribute to reshaping students’ attitudes and behaviour towards the environment, reflecting not only academic but also personal and social growth. The findings reveal that there are multiple effective ways to embed ESD in a high school curriculum. The study also provides a pedagogical framework for teachers aiming to integrate ESD into their curriculum. While the research involved a limited sample, it could serve as a background for future studies to investigate a larger population.

Higher levels of material well-being lead almost inevitably to giving priority to individualism and personal advancement, often at the expense of civic conscience. A proposal for integrating sustainability into the curriculum is presented in the third year of the degree in Early Childhood Education at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC). Projects on sustainable food are planned and elaborated to this aim. This study seeks to apply a global and systemic approach to solving socio-environmental problems and to check whether education for sustainable development (ESD) helps to develop and encourage actions that promote sustainable development. Quantitative research was conducted using a pre-test/post-test quasi experimental design separated by a period of didactic training in the project method. The results presented in this article show the students’ sustainability competencies (SC) improve after working on didactic proposals in a global manner. It is concluded that elaborating competencies in education for sustainable development enables an integrated approach of knowledge, procedures, attitudes and values in teaching through promoting the project method in multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams, which enhances future teachers’ sustainability competencies.

In light of mounting environmental concerns surrounding the overuse and accumulation of plastic waste, the United Nations (UN) has turned its attention towards sustainable materials and the Circular Economy (CE). Polymer recycling technologies have the potential to reduce the environmental impact and carbon footprint of plastic waste production, thereby contributing to the achievement of several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In response to this challenge, students enrolled in the fourth year of secondary education, specializing in technology, during the 2021–2022 academic year, developed an open-source prototype that automatically transforms polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles into recycled rPET filament for 3D printing using an automated pultrusion model. In this working group, one of the students identified as gifted developed the pultrusion prototype using challenge-based learning and the project method (PM), which is now known as project-based learning. The resulting prototype has the capacity to transform PET bottles into rPET filament with mechanical properties comparable to those of commercial filaments, thereby enabling the manufacture of a wide range of products through 3D printing. It is not the intention of this work to create a commercial product. Rather, it is designed to promote social and sustainable entrepreneurship, CE, and the values of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) through the recycling of polymers by means of 3D printing production. In addition, it seeks to develop the key competences for sustainability described in the methodological framework established by UNESCO in 2017.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an urgent need to move to online teaching and develop innovative teaching techniques to ensure that student learning outcomes (SOs) were fulfilled. This paper tries to answer the important question of whether an established teaching strategy through a multi-course project-based learning (MPL) approach, along with online assessment techniques, helps in the effective achievement of SOs in a senior-level electrical engineering (EE) course. The authors have developed a course project for attaining the objectives of a senior and a capstone course, where students are registered at the same time. In addition, the course conducts assessments online. The paper reports the effect of the two approaches on the attainment of the SOs of the two courses, along with testing the programming and problem-solving abilities of the students. It is known that the MPL approach enhances the critical thinking capacity of students, which is also a major outcome of Sustainable Development Education (ESD). It was ensured that the project that was used to test the fulfillment of a series of SOs were concentrated on soft engineering and project management skills. The difficulty of adopting the MPL method for the senior-level courses is in the scheduling of the course materials to help the student advance to the final project while also aligning the project towards fulfilling the learning outcomes of the individual course. The study also provides the students with feedback on online assessment techniques incorporated within the MPL. Besides this, the effect of the innovative teaching approaches was compared with the same senior course taught using conventional methods in an earlier semester. Based on the feedback from teachers and students from a previously conducted case study, it was concluded that the MPL approach had supported the student learning. The results of the statistical analysis (Chi-square, two-tailed T statistics and hypothesis testing using a z-test) show that an MPL approach and online assessment improved the attainment of the SOs despite the constraints posed by the pandemic.

The Erasmus+ YOU4BLUE project represents an interdisciplinary educational initiative aimed at fostering a youth culture of sustainability through hands-on learning, scientific literacy, and critical thinking focused on the marine environment. The project aimed to encourage lasting behavioural change and empower young people to act. It engaged secondary school students aged 14 to 18 on three Mediterranean islands (Sardinia, Crete, and Mallorca) through a blended Place-Based Education (PBE) model that integrates online learning with local, experiential activities. Forty-nine students completed a pre-assessment questionnaire measuring baseline marine ecosystem knowledge, sustainability-related behaviours, and attitudes toward the sea. Following three international exchanges involving the learning activities, roughly the same cohort of students completed post-activity surveys assessing self-perceived knowledge gains and intercultural interaction. Qualitative data from emotional mapping, field observations, and group reflections complemented the quantitative analysis. The results indicate substantial self-perceived increases in students’ understanding of marine ecosystems (+1.0 to +1.7 points on a 5-point scale), enhanced collaboration with international peers, and strengthened environmental awareness. Across all three sites, students applied their learning by co-designing proposals addressing local coastal challenges, demonstrating emerging civic responsibility and the ability to integrate scientific observations into real-world problem solving. These findings suggest that combining place-based education, citizen science, and participatory methods can effectively support the development of sustainability competences among youth in coastal contexts. This study contributes empirical evidence to the growing literature on education for sustainable development and highlights the value of blended, experiential, and intercultural approaches in promoting environmentally responsible behaviour.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Climate Change Education (CCE) aim at increasing (young) people's competencies and critical engagement. Their impact depends on innovative learning settings. In this study, [the authors] deliver scientific evidence of the success of ESD/CCE in schools when pupils do their own research and co-operate with experts. The COP21 Agreement 2015 sets very high targets, which cannot be reached by political agreements or technological progress alone. Within this context, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and particularly Climate Change Education (CCE), play an ever increasing role regarding a holistic societal transformation towards a sustainable world. Creating ESD/CCE learning settings and delivering scientific evidence for their success has turned into a vital challenge in order to meet the high expectations. In this longitudinal study, based on the research project k.i.d.Z.21 - Competent into the Future, [the authors] deliver scientific evidence of the success of CCE when based on transdisciplinary and/or moderate constructivist theories, and show that the impact is even higher when both approaches are combined. The data presented derive from scientific surveys and tests, involving 343 teenagers before and after intensive collaboration with a high number of experts, including renowned climate change scientists. (Orig.).

Background: The endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) is a technically demanding and time-consuming procedure, with an increased risk of adverse events compared to standard endoscopic resection techniques. The main difficulties are related to the instability of the operating field and to the loss of traction. We aimed to evaluate in a pilot trial a new endoscopic platform [tissue retractor system (TRS); ORISE, Boston scientific Co., Marlborough, MA, USA], designed to stabilize the intraluminal space, and to provide tissue retraction and counter traction. Method: We prospectively enrolled all consecutive patients who underwent an ESD for sigmoid/rectal lesions. The primary outcome was the rate of technical feasibility. Further technical aspects such as en-bloc and R0 resection rate, number of graspers used, circumferential incision time, TRS assemblage time, submucosal dissection time, and submucosal dissection speed were provided. Clinical outcomes (recurrence rate and adverse events) were recorded as well. Results: In all, 10 patients (M/F 4/6, age: 70.4 ± 11.0 years old) were enrolled. Eight out of 10 lesions were located in the rectum. Average lesion size was 31.2 ± 2.7 mm, and mean lesion area was 1628.88 ± 205.3 mm2. The two sigmoid lesions were removed through standard ESD, because the platform assemblage failed after several attempts. All rectal lesions were removed in an en-bloc fashion. R0 resection was achieved in 7/8 (87.5%) patients in an average procedure time of 60.5 ± 23.3 min. None of the patients developed neither intraprocedural nor postprocedural adverse events. Conclusion: TRS-assisted ESD is a feasible option when used in the rectum, with promising result in terms of efficacy and safety outcomes. Nevertheless, our pilot study underlines few technical limitations of the present platform that need to be overcome before the system could be widely and routinely used.