ESD examples: sustainability across school subjects

Education for sustainable development (ESD) helps students use subject knowledge to investigate connected questions about people, resources and the environment. The examples below begin with familiar curriculum topics. Choose one, set a learning goal and adapt the task to your class.

Examples across four school subjects

Science: investigate a local environment

Choose a park, river or other local ecosystem that students can observe through a school-approved visit or public information. Record changes over several weeks, look at past land use and ask community members about changes they have noticed. Students can use this evidence to propose a response.

In chemistry, students can compare cleaning-product ingredient lists and research how materials break down in water systems. Any practical investigation should use the procedures and materials approved for your class. Ask students to distinguish evidence from a product's environmental claim.

In biology, use public information to explore how air quality or food access relates to health across areas. Students can compare sources and discuss what the data can and cannot show. Use community-level information rather than asking classmates to disclose personal health details.

Mathematics: calculate and compare resource use

Younger students can use multiplication to calculate water use from example daily activities. Older students can work with school-approved energy-bill information, calculate percentages and graph possible savings. Label estimates and explain the assumptions behind them.

For statistics, compare public data on environmental risks, income or waste across areas. Ask which patterns appear and what other information would be needed to explain them. A correlation alone does not show the cause of a difference.

Geometry can support a garden-layout or solar-panel layout model with stated space constraints. In financial literacy, compare costs and discuss how incentives affect resource decisions. Keep the task as a classroom model unless a qualified school project team is implementing it.

Language: compare perspectives and write for an audience

Choose texts about nature, environmental justice or a community responding to change. Compare how the authors describe the issue, whose perspectives are included and which responses they consider.

Students can write a proposal for a school improvement, a letter to a local decision-maker or a story about a community adapting to change. Ask them to use evidence, revise for a reader and explain key terms such as biodiversity, equity or stewardship. Compare how two sources use the same terms.

Social studies: examine choices and participation

In history, investigate how societies managed resources and how industrial changes affected work, health and environmental rules. Use sources to examine several causes rather than treating the environment as the single explanation for a society's success or decline.

In geography, map resource distribution or compare how places respond to a similar environmental challenge. Where migration is part of the topic, consider economic, political and social factors as well as environmental conditions.

In civics, examine who takes part in an environmental decision and how different groups can contribute. A mock legislature can compare proposals for resource management, using evidence and stated trade-offs.

For another way to plan the unit, explore the five ESD teaching strategies.

Turn an investigation into a useful response

Begin with a question students can investigate: Why do we throw away so much paper? Where does our drinking water come from? Which parts of the school become hottest? The response can be a finding shared with another class, a proposal or a small agreed change.

1. Investigate the question using observations or reliable information.
2. Compare the evidence and identify what is missing.
3. Discuss ideas with the people affected.
4. Propose a response and explain its likely benefits and trade-offs.
5. Try an agreed action at a suitable scale, or present the proposal to someone who can respond.
6. Check what happened and reflect on the learning.

A primary class could examine classroom waste and share a sorting guide. A middle-school class could propose a stream-care activity with a local organisation. Older students could investigate school energy use and present recommendations to school leaders. Treat these as activity ideas: approval, resources and follow-up determine what can be implemented.

A partner class can investigate the same question in its own setting. For water use, compare local constraints and the evidence behind each suggestion. Students can learn from a different approach without assuming the same solution suits both places.

What makes these activities ESD?

UNESCO describes ESD as learning for informed choices about the environment, society and the economy. In a water investigation, students might connect ecosystem health, community access and the cost of a response. Ask them to consider all three rather than only naming an environmental problem.

Connect the subjects to a wider question

An issue such as food access can involve farming, nutrition, costs and environmental effects. Connect these perspectives with the subject skill you are teaching. Ask students to explain how a choice affects different people, rather than treating a sustainability label as the answer.

The Sustainable Development Goals offer a shared set of topics for this work. Choose a goal that helps frame your question and connect it to the learning objectives for the unit.

Make the thinking visible

Use these four ways of thinking and working. Use these questions in discussion, drafts and reflection. Choose a prompt and look for evidence of it in the work.

Systems thinking

For food waste, ask how the menu, buying decisions, student preferences, budget and composting options connect. What else would change if one part changed? Ask students to explain more than one possible cause.

Thinking about possible futures

For a school-garden plan, ask what could affect it over five years: weather, maintenance, resources and the people involved. Students can compare possible futures rather than predict one certain result. Similar questions can support resource-use calculations, a character's choices in literature or a policy simulation.

Working with different perspectives

Ask a partner class or community group how they see the issue. Students might compare water-management ideas from different places, ask follow-up questions and revise a proposal. Ask students to identify one idea they changed after the discussion.

Checking information

Compare a claim from a business, a public authority, a researcher or a campaign group. Who made it, what evidence supports it and whose perspective is missing? Use the same questions when judging an environmental product claim or a proposed solution.

Add another community's perspective

ESD and global citizenship education both ask learners to consider connections and perspectives. Two classes studying coastal environments could compare local information about mangroves and discuss why their responses differ. Frame this as a possible exchange, with a local question for each class and shared time to discuss the evidence.

Keep the task manageable

• Time: use a topic already in the unit and one question you can investigate.
• Knowledge: start with a topic you know and work with a colleague where other expertise is needed.
• Different views: compare evidence and trade-offs, and let students explain their reasoning.
• Resources: begin with available texts, public information or school-approved observations.
• Assessment: collect explanations, drafts, presentations or reflections against your learning goals. Assess the learning separately from the success of a proposed change.

For the wider framework and a starting checklist, use the main education for sustainable development guide.

Plan the exchange with a partner teacher

Use Class2Class to find a partner teacher in Connect and agree a question both classes can investigate. Plan how you will exchange findings and give students time to respond to one another. You can use the Project Assistant to suggest goals and activities, then edit them for your class.