Education for sustainable development through mathematical modelling in higher education: conceptual considerations, empirical explorations and implications

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is becoming increas-ingly important as an interdisciplinary task for all disciplines at all lev-els of education, including mathematics education. However, whatis meant by ESD quite often remains unclear or is regarded as ahighly contested construct. Based on these considerations, this arti-cle addresses two issues: (1) Firstly, it discusses the conceptualisationof ESD as a construct in the field of tension between instrumen-tal and emancipatory approaches. Based on these discussions, it ishighlighted (focusing on the example of mathematical modellingin mathematics education) that mathematics must be seen as anindispensable part of ESD, especially in higher education. (2) Sincethere are few concepts for concrete interdisciplinary implementa-tion of ESD, and it is largely unclear how learners’ awareness of theimportance of mathematical modelling for sustainability issues canbe promoted in educational processes, this article secondly presentsa conceptually based and empirically demonstrated concept of a uni-versity seminar on mathematical modelling of sustainability issues.The implementation of the seminar was scientifically monitored bymeans of an intervention study, investigating the extent to whichuniversity students’ beliefs and self-efficacy changed while partici-pating in such a seminar. Empirical results highlight positive effectsof this intervention.