Teachers and sustainability education: exploring the views of Australian preservice and inservice teachers

Abstract Sustainability is crucial to the ongoing capability of Earth to sustain life. Although understood in several ways, such as climate change education , education for sustainable development and education for sustainability, international efforts have promoted sustainability as an important focus for education. In Australia, this focus is reflected in sustainability being embedded in the Australian Curriculum. Australian and international researchers have found that teachers generally understand sustainability and are favourably disposed toward it, but implementation remains an issue. This paper reports findings from an online survey administered to Australian preservice and in-service teachers. Echoing previous research with teachers, participants in this study had a positive attitude towards sustainability but lacked key knowledge and confidence to teach appropriate sustainability ideas within the Australian Curriculum. As such, the implementation of the sustainability cross-curriculum priority area seems inconsistent and there is a need to support teachers through curriculum resources, professional development, and ongoing mentoring.