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Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a demanding new field in terms of content and context and requires whole-school approaches and changes in educational structures. The field's implementation constitutes a great challenge for teachers, novice in the field of ESD. Teacher education for ESD needs to effectively transfer knowledge and skills related to the concepts of sustainable development and reflect the relation of ESD to values education, systemic thinking and an interdisciplinary approach. The teaching methods employed by teacher education need to be in accordance with ESD methods and to empower teachers for integrating ESD in the teaching-learning process. For this purpose, we used a mentoring system to introduce experienced and newly appointed teachers, all novice in the field of ESD, to planning and implementing ESD and evaluated the potential of mentoring as a form of education for empowering teachers for ESD. Results highlight the value of mentoring since it encompasses all of the attributes that ESD teacher education requires in an experiential and practical form, it promotes teacher interaction and the formation of professional learning communities for ESD and it increases teachers' pedagogical content knowledge of the subject. IntroductionEffective teachers are key determinants for successful schools, and teacher professional development is vital for improving the quality of education. Continuing professional development (CPD) of teachers raises teacher performance and can follow different educational models: the training model, the award bearing model, the deficit model, the cascade model and so forth (Kennedy 2005). As the uncertainty regarding the efficacy of external courses for raising teacher performance grows (Rhodes and Beneice 2002), CPD turns to school-based educational models.The coaching/mentoring model of professional development is based on mutual teacher support and dissemination of best practices and it is largely widespread in

This article reports on an exploratory study of the existing state of EE practice in the kindergarten schools of the Athens area. The study attempted to establish an overall picture on whether and how kindergarten teachers are involved in the application of EE. The following were examined: the extent of EE application in the kindergarten schools of the chosen area; the level of teachers' preparation from in-service training and self-learning practices; their motives for becoming (or not becoming) involved in EE application; the topics and types of activities through which they implement EE; the types of collaborations they have developed; and from whom they receive support in their work. It is indicated that emphasis should be placed on the systematic in-service training of kindergarten teachers concerning theory as well as practical application of EE. It is also suggested that in-service training should take advantage of self-learning practices and be promoted through distance-learning education structures.

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