Science Education for Global Sustainability: What Is Necessary for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Strategies?

A sound, meaningful education in chemistry and science requires a revolutionized change in the guiding philosophy, rationale, and models of our thinking, behavior, and action. 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 (HOCS), system critical thinking, question-asking, decision-making, and problem solving. This should become the top priority goal of contemporary and future effective chemical education. Accordingly, meaningful chemistry and science education for sustainability is envisioned as a teaching approach that is interdisciplinary, and promotes critical system thinking, problem solving, and decision-making, with the ultimate goal of increasing students’ HOCS learning such that they can apply these skills and practices beyond the science disciplines to the complex problems and decisions that need to be addressed in society as a whole for global sustainability.