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Teachers in elementary schools play a crucial role in educating children about sustainable development. Therefore, the concept of sustainable development is essential for elementary pre-service teachers to be ready for their future careers. This study used the sequential mixed methods design to investigate the relationship between the sustainable development perspectives of elementary pre-service teachers in Southern Vietnam and the current teacher training curriculum. The EDINSOST sustainability questionnaire was distributed to 392 participants in order to measure four dimensions of sustainable development: critical contextualization of knowledge, sustainable use of resources, participation in community processes, and ethics. A set of six interview questions was conducted with eight participants, focused on their understandings of sustainable development and the evaluation of the curriculum on sustainable development. Quantitative findings revealed that elementary pre-service teachers rate moderately on all dimensions; however, the knowledge is slightly higher than the behavior. Moreover, there were variations in perspectives based on pre-service teachers’ grade level and gender. Qualitative findings suggested the lack of sustainable development perspectives amongst pre-service teachers and the gaps in the teacher training curriculums regarding sustainable development. Finally, detailed discussions regarding the implementation of sustainable development in the training curriculum were provided.

Background: In recent years, researchers have been paying increasing attention to the issues of how emotions affect people’s perceptions of the environment, and how they influence people’s behavior or intentions to act. The purpose of this study is to explore the influences of emotions on environmental intention to act by using the neuroscience technology electroencephalography (EEG). Methods: A total of 70 university students participated in this study. They looked at positive and negative emotional environmental pictures and decided if they wanted to protect the environment after looking at the pictures. The participants wore an EEG cap throughout the process in order to collect their brain wave (EEG) data. Results: The analysis of variance (ANOVA) results showed that the power value of meditation was significantly higher when the participants looked at the positive than at the negative emotional environmental pictures (p < 0.001). The power value of pressure was significantly higher when the participants looked at the negative than at the positive emotional environmental pictures (p < 0.001). The power value of attention was significantly higher when the participants looked at the negative than at the emotional environmental pictures (p < 0.001). Conclusions and recommendations: The findings showed that positive emotional environmental pictures might promote positive emotions, but will decrease the intention to act to protect the environment. In contrast, negative emotional environmental pictures will increase negative emotions, and will also increase attention and intention to act to protect the environment. Implications of the findings are discussed.

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