Traditional consumer education (CE), aimed at providing information and guidance to young people, has become insufficient to take on the challenges posed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG 12. Knowledge of youth's habits as consumers today and citizens of the future becomes essential for defining the most suitable methodological contents and strategies for effective and sustainable CE. This premise was the inception for our research project on the consumption of young people, focusing on the acquisition, purchase, and use of new technologies. Data were obtained from a sample of 994 young people who participated in activities at the Consumption School of Catalonia and completed a questionnaire. The main results revealed that young people did not include sustainability criteria in their use or purchase of technological devices, especially mobile phones: the replacement rate for mobiles was very high (1, 2, or 3 years) and the most important purchase criteria were price, technical features, and brand. These results highlight the need to propose a new kind of CE that challenges the young to think about and adopt consumption methods adopting a contextual, constructive, and complex perspective.
Social and environmental problems are increasing, as is the urgency that they be addressed in educational institutions to form critical, responsible and active citizens. In this training process, the dialogue between science education and education for sustainability is crucial if we want to understand socio-environmental problems in complex and uncertain contexts, which is why we define Critical Science Education for Sustainability (CSES). In addition to reflecting on which contents and methodologies are most appropriate in CSES, it is also necessary to reflect on the development of assessment instruments that allow diagnosing and evaluating the practice, materials and educational activities from such a perspective. Only with an appropriate instrument and suitable diagnosis can we make decisions to transform education and move towards CSES. This article presents an investigation based on the Delphi method with the participation of 37 international researchers, which resulted in a rubric, the Science, Technology and Society Assessment Tool. A rubric is a kind of evaluation tool that can assess education programs using qualitative or quantitative descriptors. This rubric is meant to analyze and guide critical science education in the context of teaching, policies and educational programs that favor sustainability.
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