Chemistry Education Research and Practice

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German chemistry teachers understanding of sustainability and education for sustainable developmentAn interview case study
Mareike Burmeister, Sabine Schmidt-Jacob and Ingo Eilks*
Sustainability became a regulatory idea of national and international policies worldwide with the advent of the Agenda 21. One part of these policies includes promoting sustainability through educational reform. With the United Nations World Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), spanning the years 2005 to 2014, all school subjects are requested to contribute to this reform, including secondary chemistry education. Furthermore, educational reform can only be successful if it takes teachers prior knowledge and attitudes into account. Unfortunately in the case of German secondary chemistry education, information about teachers knowledge and attitudes is very rare. In order to close this gap, a study using semi-structured interviews with a random sample of 16 experienced chemistry teachers was conducted and the results qualitatively analyzed. These results show that teachers hold positive attitudes when it comes to implementing issues of sustainability and

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Received 10th October 2012, Accepted 2nd January 2013 DOI: 10.1039/c2rp20137b www.rsc.org/cerp

ESD in their teaching. However, the findings also document that teachers are only vaguely informed about the theoretical concepts behind sustainability and ESD. For the most part, the teachers possess almost no theoretically-informed ideas about pedagogies which could be used to implement ESD in chemistry teaching. Reforms in teacher education (pre- and in-service) and the development of appropriate curriculum materials are highly recommended.

Introduction
In recent years, the terms sustainability and sustainable development have become part of the vocabulary most often used in public and political debates. With the advent of the report Our common future (UN, 1987) and the Agenda 21 (UNCED, 1992), sustainability has become an integral, regulatory idea contained in national and international policies worldwide (Rauch, 2004). As a theoretical conceptualization, the Brundtland Commission proposed a definition which remains one of the most widely-accepted descriptions available: Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (UN, 1987, 41) Today, our understanding of sustainability and sustainable development no longer restricts sustainability issues to questions about the environment, but also includes the development of humankind and society. Most theoretical concepts of sustainability include at least three dierent dimensions: the ecological,
University of Bremen, Biology/Chemistry, Bremen, Germany. E-mail: ingo.eilks@uni-bremen.de; Tel: +4942121863280

the economic and the social. However, no consensus exists as to whether these three dimensions should be considered equally important or whether further dimensions such as culture should be added (e.g., Hawkes, 2001; Dresner, 2008). Nevertheless, most modern concepts of sustainability have the factor of multidimensionality in common. As a minimum, they include the ecological, economic and societal dimensions, whose importance and relative weighting are negotiated with respect to one another. This includes also the question of intergenerational justice and a focus on some combination of the local, regional and global levels (Burmeister et al., 2012). Reform in education makes up part of international policies for promoting sustainable development (Rauch, 2004). This has already been stated in Agenda 21: Education is critical for promoting sustainable development and improving the capacity of the people to address environment and development issues (UNCED, 1992, Chapter 36.3). Because of the importance of education for sustainable development, the UN declared the World Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), which spans the years 2005 to 2014 (UNESCO, 2005). The purpose of the DESD is to implement Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in all areas of formal and

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Paper informal education worldwide, in order to enhance peoples ability to act in a sustainable manner and create a sustainable future (De Haan et al., 2010). Many initiatives were launched as part of the DESD. However, the question whether the main goals of the DESD will be reached until 2014 and whether ESD by that time really will be implemented into regular classrooms in general, and in chemistry education in particular, is still open. All educational domains and subjects are required to contribute to ESD, including secondary chemistry teaching. Burmeister et al. (2012) emphasized the special importance of chemistry education, since this subject lies at the heart of the economy in every developed or emerging society. Chemistry is the key science for the production of innovative products, modern materials, sustainable energy supplies, medicines, and fertilizers. Simultaneously, chemistry is also related to great challenges concerning the protection and preservation of the environment (Bradley, 2005). Unfortunately, chemical technology and industry have not always been in line with ideas of sustainable development in the past. Nevertheless, changes in thinking and practice have taken placeat least in many of the developed countries. Today, chemistry-related businesses seek cleaner production methods, reduced resource consumption and equitable social standards and working conditions (ECCC, 1993).

Chemistry Education Research and Practice curricula and pedagogies for chemistry teaching which are driven by explicit ESD pedagogies are still hard to find. Most existing chemistry related materials focus primarily on technological or environmental points-of-view, without thoroughly reflecting upon the ecological, economical and societal impacts. Burmeister et al. (2012) have clearly argued that it is not enough to simply add environmental issues and the chemical basics of sustainability-related technologies to the content or context of chemistry learning; they argued for more chemistry education in the means of socio-scientific issues based curricula (e.g., Sadler, 2011) with a specific focus on sustainability issues. Also McKeown (2006) argues that ESD requires the implementation of a skills-oriented teaching paradigm in order to promote an ESD which goes beyond mere education about sustainable development. Such skills will allow learners to actively participate in shaping todays world and society in a sustainable fashion. However, the development of such capabilities requires specific pedagogies (Burmeister et al., 2012; De Haan, 2006; Wheeler, 2000) and a thorough implementation of learning about sustainability issues, green chemistry and respective pedagogies in chemistry teacher education (Burmeister and Eilks, in press; Karpudewan et al., 2012). Due to existing shortcomings in chemistry teaching, which does not always take the societal and economic dimension of chemistry suciently into account (Hofstein et al., 2011; Hofstein and Kesner, 2006), reforms with a more thorough orientation around ESD are necessary (Ware, 2001). As Anderson and Helms (2001) or Hattie (2009) have suggested, teachers remain the most important factor for reform in education. What teachers think, believe and know aects their teaching. These factors are therefore important when it comes to eectively and successfully reforming teaching practice. Unfortunately, insight into the area of teacher knowledge, beliefs and applied pedagogies concerning ESD remains rare, particularly in the context of German chemistry education. By a case study approach, this study attempts to close this gap somewhat. It tries to contribute answering the questions: What subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge do experienced teachers of chemistry (in Germany) have about theoretical models of sustainability, Green Chemistry, and theory-based concepts and pedagogies of ESD? What beliefs about and attitudes towards do the teachers have both concerning the implementation of issues of sustainability and Green Chemistry into chemistry education as well as operating chemistry teaching following the theory of ESD?

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Green Chemistry and sustainability in chemistry and in chemistry education

The ideas of Green or Sustainable Chemistry (Anastas and Warner, 1998; Centi and Perathoner, 2009) set up guidelines for sustainability with a focus on chemistry. These guidelines include, among others, to apply chemical processes that are connected to producing less waste, using smaller amounts of substances (microscale chemistry), to operate energy ecient procedures, or to replace poisonous and dangerous substances by less harmful alternatives. Many businesses have chosen to follow these principles, although they are not forced to do so. However, even in those countries where sustainability in chemistry related businesses became an accepted agenda there is much left to be done. That means, also chemistry education still needs to contribute to imparting knowledge that could support changes in the behavior and could help students promoting a more sustainable future when it comes to societal decisions on the applications of chemistry related technologies. Education is needed in order to produce well-informed citizens, who can cope with and reflect critically upon media reports (Hartings and Fahy, 2011) and societal debates about chemistry and technology, and who are skilful in actively participating in societal decisions towards a more sustainable future and changing their behavior towards leading sustainable lifestyle (Ware, 2001). In the last 40 years, several political agendas have been outlined, which promote ESD within education in general and chemistry education in particular (UNESCO, 2005). However,

Theoretical framework
Teachers are the key factor for the potential success of any educational reform (Anderson and Helms, 2001; Hattie, 2009). Eective educational reform will only occur when teachers a priori knowledge, attitudes and beliefs are seriously taken into account (Haney et al., 1996; Trigwell et al., 1994). Therefore, exploring teachers prior knowledge and addressing their personal beliefs is a necessary first step, if any attempt to change teaching practice is being planned (Van Driel et al., 2007).

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Chemistry Education Research and Practice In 1987, Shulman stated that professional teacher knowledge is composed of subject matter knowledge (SMK), pedagogical knowledge (PK), and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Teachers need specific SMK to contend with ESD issues in general and in chemistry lessons in particular. SMK related to ESD in chemistry education diers from traditional SMK in chemistry. For example, SMK necessary to understand sustainability relevant issues in chemistry encompasses advanced knowledge about the interaction of chemicals with the environment and living organisms, about new analytical techniques, or alternative roads in laboratory and industrial synthesis, e.g., form-selective catalysis or about ionic liquids as a solvent. Liarakou et al. (2009) and Summers et al. (2001) emphasize the importance of specific teachers SMK for eectively focusing the eects of environmentally- and ESD-based education. Such SMK includes areas as new technologies, new applications of chemistry in industry, current ecological problems, or the principles of Green Chemistry. However, knowledge of the basic definitions, concepts and models of sustainability and sustainable development, including their overall meaning used in the sustainability debate is also crucial (Burmeister et al., 2012). From Shulman (1987) it also becomes clear that specific PK and PCK is needed, because the topics and objectives of ESDdriven chemistry dier from traditional teaching practices. PK is needed if ESD forms the core of an entire school reform program (Rauch, 2004), whereas PCK is more relevant when it comes to answering needs in domain-specific chemistry teaching (Burmeister et al., 2012). Bucat (2004) explains how domain-specific chemistry PCK truly is. Teachers who are expected to successfully apply ESD in chemistry education need to specifically know about the potential orientations of chemistry teaching that fit ESD objectives. They require adequate ideas for connecting ESD to the chemistry curriculum, knowledge how to take students foreknowledge into account and a suitable repertoire of pedagogies for operating ESD in chemistry classrooms. Also here a few thoughts might help to understand the need for a dierent PK and PCK. Among others, PK in the framework of ESD asks for concepts and justifications to promote learning for societal participation. This knowledge is necessary to adjust the general objectives as well as assessments for ESD driven chemistry education. However, the mediator for ESD in chemistry education is the content. The teachers need a suciently developed repertoire of suitable chemistry related issues to provoke ESD. They need knowledge about the right contexts, teaching materials, experiments, or pedagogies to enable ESD along these issues with connection to sustainable development. The teachers need knowledge, e.g., on experiments to teach about modern pathways of synthesis under inclusion of modern catalysis as well as pedagogies to reflect with the students about the impact of these new technologies on the economy, ecology, or society. All this needs to be part of their PCK if the teachers intend to eectively operated ESD in chemistry education. Research analysing SMK and PCK of secondary chemistry teachers concerning sustainable development and ESD in

Paper Germany remains sketchy. Studies in 2003 on 787 primary and in 2007 on 1865 secondary teachers from all subjects revealed that teachers SMK level for sustainability is low and that most underlying ideas of ESD were unfamiliar to them (Seybold and Rie, 2006; Rie and Mischo, 2008). These findings have been supported recently by Burmeister and Eilks (under review) in a more specific study targeting the knowledge base of roughly 200 student teachers and teacher trainees of chemistry in Germany. This study revealed that the participants had knowledge deficits in both their SMK and PCK concerning sustainability and ESD. The participants could only intuitively associate ideas stemming from the environmental side of sustainability problems. They had diculty addressing the economic and societal side of the sustainability related issues in the context of chemistry education. The German situation proved to be similar to findings from other countries. In the UK, Summers et al. (2000) researched the understanding of 12 primary teachers regarding environmental issues. They found that this group of primary teachers had substantial understanding of some aspects of the science underpinning the four environmental topics investigated. However, other key ideas underlying these topics were far less well understood by the teachers or were absent (p. 307). Another study by Summers et al. (2001) examining 170 practising primary school teachers plus 120 primary and 88 secondary science teacher trainees came to a similar conclusion. Zachariou and Kadji-Beltran (2009) asked school principals in Cyprus about their understanding of sustainability. They revealed that even principals largely underemphasize the economic and social domains. A study in Greece by Spiropoulou, Antonakaki, Kontaxaki and Bouras (2007) came to similar conclusions. Additional insights can be gleaned from studies on related topics. Feierabend et al. (2011) described German chemistry teachers attitudes and PCK towards teaching climate change. The teachers had many intuitive ideas of how to perform this task. Yet there was very little coherent or theory-based PCK among the participants when specifically dealing with implementation of this topic in chemistry classes. The participants showed very positive attitudes with respect to implementing climate change in teaching. These results are similar to other studies in biology and environmental education, e.g., Peer et al. (2007) in Israel or Esa (2010) in Malaysia. However, knowledge is not the only important predictive factor for successful educational reform. Research has also shown how important pre- and in-service teacher attitudes and beliefs are when it comes to implementing reforms (Tobin et al., 1994). Attitudes and beliefs act as filters through which new knowledge and experiences are screened for meaning. They aect how knowledge and intentions are operationalized in class (Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992). Tuncer et al. (2009) argue that teachers will only produce students who are environmentally literate if they themselves are knowledgeable and have positive attitudes towards the environment. Summers et al. (2003) conducted teacher training on ESD for primary science teachers. They found that teachers perceived teaching ESD as something new, exciting and immensely valuable,

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Paper although they had a lack of knowledge and diculties developing their own teaching practices at first. Kagawa (2007) had similar results in an online survey of 1865 students of the University of Plymouth in all subject areas, including student teachers. The participants viewed sustainability as a good thing, but their positive responses were not particularly correlated, high degrees of familiarity with theoretical concepts of sustainability. Student teachers, trainees and in-service teachers all tend to have positive attitudes towards implementing issues dealing with environmental education or ESD into their classes and belief in the worth of implementing ESD in chemistry classes. But there are often knowledge deficits in both their SMK and PCK. PCK seems to represent the knowledge domain with the largest deficits, whether we are looking at all educational domains in general or chemistry education in particular. It has been suggested by Burmeister and Eilks (under review) that the reasons are not solely limited to teacher education, but also aected by prevalent teaching practices in schools. This was derived from the fact that most student teachers in their study stated that they had never heard anything about sustainability when they were students in high school. However, there is at present no corresponding study exploring the knowledge base, attitudes and practices among in-service secondary school chemistry teachers in Germany.

Chemistry Education Research and Practice guide, experts from the research group discussed the interview guide and two pilot-interviews were conducted. In all three areas, a set of expandable questions and phrases, including illustrative material, was prepared to be adapted to the specific interview situation by the interviewer. The general procedure to dig into teachers knowledge on sustainability concepts and theoretical knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards ESD (Table 1, 1a2b) was to first ask about teachers spontaneous associations with a particular topic by provoking their thinking in giving the technical term. Then further questions were posed, e.g., what attitudes and concepts the teachers could provide after they were made familiar with a short introduction to theoretical definitions of the dierent terms. For example, in 1b, we asked the participants on their spontaneous associations about the term Green Chemistry. Some were familiar with the fact that this is a defined theoretical concept; others only associated the words green and chemistry and proposed a potential meaning. For those not knowing the background of the term, a short theoretical explanations was provided and the interview continued in asking them for their consideration about it. The same strategy was applied in all domains 1a2b of the interview (Table 1). Personal experiences were also collected from the participants especially concerning experienced or assumed problems and diculties in implementing ESD. The interview guide was developed by all three authors and pre-tested in two piloting interviews. The interviews were conducted by a researcher from the research group in the framework of an MEd thesis project. The interviews lasted about 30 minutes each and were audiotaped. The interviews were transcribed and jointly analyzed by the MEd researcher together with two experienced researchers. Analysis was done according to Qualitative Content Analysis (Mayring, 2000). Qualitative Content Analysis is a cyclical procedure for analyzing qualitative data starting from an open coding of all the interview data. The codes are then grouped and cyclically refined into more and more general categories. The selection of potential codes and the formation of categories start from the interview questions and the theoretical framework of the study. The categories are constantly refined until they both represent the data in good saturation and also form a comprehensible picture of the data. Every step of coding and refinement of categories was controlled by a second researcher. Agreement rate was constantly high (above 80%). Final decisions on coding and categorization of the data were reached by means of search for inter-subjective agreement as described by Swanborn (1996). Table 2 gives an overview of the sample consisting of 16 randomly selected experienced chemistry teachers from dierent schools in Northern Germany.

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Method and sample

This study is based on semi-structured interviews. The interview guide encompasses questions inquiring into the SMK, PCK, beliefs, and attitudes of the chemistry teachers with respect to sustainability and ESD. The interview guide consists of three sections (see Table 1). Each section contains two guiding ideas that lead to the main interview questions. The first section deals with the teachers SMK of and attitudes towards sustainability, sustainable development, and green chemistry (1a and b). The second part considers teachers theory-based PCK and beliefs about and attitudes towards ESD in general and in chemistry education in particular (2a and b). The third part focuses on teachers experiences and considerations for implementing ESD in chemistry education as well as including potential diculties and any assumed needs for successful implementation. This third part is considered being focused on the experienced-based knowledge of the teachers that also forms part of their PCK. However, their view on potential implementation is also asked for to better understand their beliefs and attitudes (3a and b). For purposes of control of comprehensibility and validation of the interview
Table 1 Structure of the interview guide

Section Sustainability, sustainable development and Green Chemistry Education for sustainable development in general and in chemistry education (PCK) Problems, diculties and needs

No. 1a 1b 2a 2b 3a 3b

Guiding idea Definition of sustainability and sustainable development Knowledge about Green Chemistry and its principles Definition of ESD, knowledge of programs ESD and chemistry education attitudes, ideas, practices Diculties concerning the implementation of ESD in schools Requirements and interests concerning in-service teacher training

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Chemistry Education Research and Practice

Table 2 Sample

Paper felt unfamiliar with the term. When asked about the ideas underpinning the concept of Green Chemistry, answers were only vaguely informed. Single intuitive ideas were mentioned and generally went in the right direction. Replies touched most often on ideas about recycling and the reduction of dangerous substances: Yes, it states with respect to Chemistry that everything must be taken into account for every process which is carried out. This counts for recycling and producing the least amount of waste products. What exactly happens? Which chemicals are to be used? Are they really necessary? You try to find out which way is the best, naturally also for the environment. A fully-developed and comprehensive theoretical understanding of the concept of Green Chemistry was missing in all the interviews. The final analysis revealed a lack of knowledge of current theories and concepts as well as high degrees of uncertainty among the teachers. The deficits in the teachers SMK of sustainability concepts in general, especially within the domain of chemistry, was exacerbated by their deficits with regard to teacher knowledge and PCK about ESD. Only two out of the 16 teachers ever heard of the term ESD. None of them were able to explain what this word means. The one teacher stated that he heard the term during an in-service-teacher training course, but only connected it to sustainable (eective) learning. The second participant described ESD as something useful for sensitizing pupils to sustainability, but could not explain anything beyond this. Another teacher mentioned having heard about Transfer 21, the German hub of the UNs world decade for ESD (De Haan, 2006), but was unable to explain anything more. Underlying theoretical concepts as, e.g., outlined in the pedagogies promoted by the UNs German hub for the world decade of ESD were completely unknown among the teachers. It quickly became obvious that the teachers had no developed understanding of what ESD means in the theoretical sense. When asked for relevant subjects which could contribute to ESD, ten teachers mentioned science subjects in general as being very important. Only one teacher mentioned chemistry and biology explicitly. All the rest stated that all school subjects should contribute to ESD. Eleven teachers mentioned at least one additional subject outside the sciences, which most often belonged to the social sciences such as politics or history. Mathematics and languages were infrequently mentioned and seen only in a subordinate role. The teachers were then given a short introduction into the theoretical concept of ESD. They were then asked for their ideas of how chemistry education could contribute to ESD. The teachers answered most frequently with examples of which chemistry topics might be best used for ESD in chemistry lessons. Most of these ideas centered around fossil/renewable fuels and a more ecient use of resources, followed by environmental issues and a third cluster of answers concerning waste disposal and recycling. However, the teachers did not solely mention chemistry topics. They also commented on the interdisciplinary dimension of dealing with ESD in the chemistry curriculum.

Age range

2535 2 Male 10 o5 3

3645 2

445 12 Female 6 510 3 410 10 Both 5

Gender

Years of teaching experience

Teaching level

Lower secondary 9

Upper secondary 2

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Findings and discussion

Only two thirds of the participants (11 out of 16) remembered having heard anything about sustainability or sustainable development previous to the interview. None of the 16 teachers was able to give a theoretically-informed definition of either of the two terms. When asked for intuitive ideas associated with the terms, most of the teachers connected them with environmental and technological issues, especially natural resources and renewable energies. Only two out of the 16 teachers presented any intuitive ideas covering all three dimensions of sustainability. Only one of them was able to eectively connect all three dimensions of modern sustainability concepts: In general, I learned that sustainability is split into three areas: social, economic and ecological. Principally one is supposed to make sure that whatever one is doingin this instance with respect to Chemistryretains the ecological balance. In other words, there should be a minimum of poisonous by-products and waste materials, coupled with the financial aspect and the social aspect. Society at large must be taken into consideration when attempting to achieve sustainability, because it is all tied in with social sustainability, too. The idea of intergenerational justice as described in the Brundtland report was not mentioned by all 16 teachers. Instead, 6 out of the 16 teachers intuitively made a connection between the word sustainability and education. For these teachers, sustainability is interpreted as remembering things for a long time after being confronted with information in school lessons. At first I didnt think about sustainability with respect to Chemistry or sustainable development, but rather more generally what remains from our teaching, how much of our teaching sticks with our pupils. That was my first thought. After being introduced to the Brundtland report definition and the three pillars model of sustainability (combining ecological, economic and societal sustainability), 14 teachers expressed positive attitudes towards this concept: I think that the interrelatedness and the equality among the three factors is definitely important. Oh, and I also think that the fact that they interact with one another on an equal footing is also important. Nine teachers had heard of the term Green Chemistry as a theoretical concept and were able to associate this concept with chemistry research and industrial practices. Another two teachers assumed that it belonged in this area, although they

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Paper . . . the ability to assess is not totally based on subject matter knowledge, but rather includes methodological knowledge, evaluative competency and theres another aspect, social or something. . .. Ten teachers embedded their topic suggestions into an opinion in order to connect it to one of the other sustainability dimensions; eight teachers made comments on an interdisciplinary approach. At any rate, a thorough inclusion of the societal and economic dimensions of chemistry was lacking in the explanation of nearly all the teachers with a few exceptions: Possibly within the framework of project work . . . since it contains many dierent aspects . . . because you dont just have to illuminate the biological or chemical areas of the sciences, but also have to cover social, economic, political and similar facets. It became quite clear that none of the teachers had ever designed a teaching unit using ESD as its central aim. All of the ideas presented were intuitive, quite vague, and presented with varying amounts of uncertainty. How to deal with the societal and economical dimensions of chemistry teaching remained unclear, even though most of the teachers realized that ESD demands that such issues be covered in an integrated and comprehensive approach. When asked for appropriate teaching methods, several teachers mentioned open, student-centered methods like group work, project-based work, or inquiry-based approaches using issues taken from students lives and society at large. Nevertheless, specific pedagogies for ESD-driven and socio-scientific issues-based science teaching were not mentioned, e.g., exercises incorporating arguing, debating, or decision-making were completely missing. The last part of the interview asked participants to speculate on the reasons for the low implementation levels of ESD in German chemistry teaching. The range of responses was broad and many dealt with general problems of the German school system, e.g., such as overly large classes, the misbehavior of pupils, diculties in cooperation with other school subjects, or a lack of time for collaborating with colleagues when preparing classes. A second area of answers touched upon the structure of the chemistry syllabus, limited freedom when choosing topics and textual approaches, and objectives primarily focused on and determined by the following assessments and exams: In the upper grade levels I notice the strict testing schedule, by which date I really have to have covered the subject matter, when I have to write the exam ... Yes? And in the intermediate levels we have the strictures that the subject matter must be covered and that is the problem right now since we are supposed to save on the one end, but make sure that our pupils manage the university entrance criteria after twelve years of schooling on the other ... That means, um, that the content has more-or-less remained the same and is hardly able to be covered by us in the available time remaining. That would further mean that setting the main emphasis on sustainability simultaneously entails reducing content matter with an ensuing increase in the space and time available to achieve this aim. At least that is what I would think. Teachers often mentioned a wish to change school structures. They desired more time in general to cooperate with other colleagues, to preparing teaching materials and to

Chemistry Education Research and Practice undertake interdisciplinary projects. Another big issue was the required support needed for implementing ESD. As teachers gradually became aware of their personal lack of knowledge, they enthusiastically requested teaching materials which fit the aims of ESD in the field of chemistry education. Furthermore, they demanded in-service training on the topic. However, participation in in-service teacher training is not compulsory (or at least not monitored) for teachers in northern Germany. Eleven teachers stated that they would like to participate in an in-service teacher training program on the topic. They wished to receive concrete material fitting the syllabus, which contain experiments and are ready for immediate use. Only five teachers were not interested in in-service training. Three of them had previously had negative experiences with in-service training; two felt that they were too close to retirement for such training to be either useful or eective. Three groups of teachers were identified in our sample. The first group revealed no ESD-specific ideas in their recorded statements and, therefore, had no clue of what sustainability and ESD is actually about. Fortunately, only one teacher belonged to this group. The second group consisted of five teachers who were able to intuitively associate sustainability with related topics. They could connect the social and ecological dimensions, but any knowledge about ESD-specific pedagogies was missing in their arguments. These teachers thought exclusively in terms of environmental education, neglected the broader range of concepts of sustainability, and were unaware of the broad focus of theoretically-informed ESD teaching. The third group covered those ten teachers whose thoughts went in the right direction regarding their ideas expressing at least two dimensions of sustainability. Some also expressed intuitive ideas concerning the broader range of ESD goals. This is encouraging, since it shows that these teachers are openminded and prepared to apply ESD in chemistry education. A fourth category would have contained theoretically wellinformed teachers with regard to SMK, PCK and knowledgeable about appropriate pedagogies for implementing ESD in chemistry lessons. Unfortunately, none of the 16 teachers showed this degree of knowledge. These results fall in line with a related study examining German student teachers and teacher trainees in chemistry (Burmeister and Eilks, under review).

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Conclusions and implications

Most teachers acknowledged the importance of implementing ESD in chemistry education. Unfortunately, the participants appear to show major deficits in knowledge when it comes to the SMK of sustainability and PCK related to ESD in chemistry education. If asked for personal, intuitive ideas, most ideas mentioned stemmed from technological and environmental issues. However, the teachers were rarely able to apply the interplay of the ecological, economic and societal dimensions typical for such issues in the foreground of sustainability. Furthermore, the teachers could not elaborate on these issues concerning any potential ESD-type teaching strategy. This documents an even bigger lack of elaborated concepts when

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Chemistry Education Research and Practice it comes to PCK necessary for operating ESD in the classroom. The findings in this study parallel to those found for German chemistry student teachers and teacher trainees (Burmeister and Eilks, under review) and teachers from other countries (Summers and Childs, 2007; Spiropoulou et al., 2007; Zachariou and Kadij-Beltran, 2009). One reason for this might be that most of the teachers interviewed finished their formal education over 20 years ago, as they mentioned in the interviews. At this time, sustainability and ESD were not common topics in chemistry studies in German universities. Anyhow, there seems to be also a lack in in-service training since the lacks still exist. Nevertheless younger teachers surveyed also had no idea about ESD showing deficits in more recent teacher education programs. This claim is supported by a second study examining German student teachers and teacher trainees (Burmeister and Eilks, under review). Neither subject matter courses in teacher training, nor general and domain-specific education courses seem to oer students any theoretically-based understanding of modern concepts of either sustainability or ESD. Despite the participants relative lack of knowledge, some promising results also arose from this study. The teachers showed generally positive attitudes towards teaching about sustainability issues. They also believe in the importance of ESD in general and in science education in particular. After having received theoretical input on sustainability and the theory behind ESD, many of them were able to suggest intuitively meaningful topics, contexts and at least some suitable pedagogies. The majority of the teachers wanted to implement ESD in their classrooms and expressed a wish for well-prepared materials and in-service training. A more thorough implementation of sustainability and ESD in chemistry teacher education and the preparation of pre- and in-service teacher training courses is a must, at least in the case of Germany. Such training needs to include both the learning of subject matter and achieving an understanding of the theoretical constructs behind modern concepts of sustainability and ESD. One respective example was just recently suggested in Burmeister and Eilks (in press). We recommend that both of these issues take more prominent roles in training future chemistry teachers because of the importance that chemistry has for achieving sustainable development. Also more investment in the development of appropriate lesson plans, pedagogies and curriculum materials is suggested (e.g., Burmeister and Eilks, 2012) both for direct use in class and as illustrative cases for chemistry teacher training. Such approaches can contribute to reaching the full potential inherent in chemistry education when it comes to the promotion of more general educational skills. This skills set includes students future ability to take part in societal debates and decision-making processes (Hofstein et al., 2011).

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