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There has recently been significant emphasis placed on environmental education through, for example, the UN's Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. Despite this, there is still considerable debate within the literature as to how the aims of environmental education can be achieved within schools. It seems likely that if there is a lack of agreement as to what education for sustainable development should include, then this will impact students' understanding of sustainable development. This paper presents findings from research investigating how one class of 12-to 13-year-old geography students in the UK understands the concept of sustainability. The research used concept-mapping and semi-structured interviews to explore the students' understandings of sustainability, within a case study framework. The substantive findings of this research suggest that there is a wide variety of understanding of sustainability among the students, but that generally they allude to three: the nature, purpose and timescale of sustainability. The paper also considers the impact of method on researching students' subject understandings, in particular the use of context when considering abstract concepts, such as sustainability, and the different results obtained when conducting interviews versus concept maps.

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There has recently been significant emphasis placed on environmental education through the United Nations’ Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). One of the aims of the DESD is to ‘prepare young people for a lifetime of sustainable living’, and yet, despite this, there is a lack of evidence to suggest whether or not the aims of ESD have been achieved within schools. This paper presents findings from a longitudinal study investigating one class of 14‐ and 15‐year‐old Geography students in England%s understandings of sustainability and their attitudes towards sustainable development. The research used dialogic diaries and semi‐structured interviews to explore the students’ understandings of sustainability, within a case study framework. The study found that the students’ understandings of sustainability became more nuanced across the year, with a focus on the environmental perspective of sustainable development. Many students also appeared to feel a growing sense of responsibility towards sustainable development which is significant given the DESD%s aim of developing young people%s pro‐sustainable behaviour. However, despite this, it is argued that more work needs to be done with young people to develop their understanding of sustainability, and to encourage them to fully engage with issues of sustainable development in today%s society.

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There is general agreement that Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have a place within the geography classroom; they offer the potential to support geographical learning, exploring real-world problems through student-centred learning, and developing spatial thinking. Despite this, teachers often avoid engaging with GIS and research suggests that the lack of GIS training in initial teacher education is partially to blame. In response to this, this article explores how 16 trainee geography teachers were supported to develop their use of GIS across a one-year, postgraduate teacher training course in England. The project, an interpretive case study underpinned by a constructivist epistemology, used questionnaires and interviews to elicit trainees' understandings of the nature of GIS, and to explore their engagement with it across their training year. Results suggest a programme of embedded training developed in trainees a more nuanced understanding of the value of GIS for supporting geographical learning and, thereby, increased self-efficacy towards and engagement with it in their teaching practice. However, not all trainees embraced GIS as a pedagogical tool and the study raised several key issues for geography teacher education, including the knowledge culture within schools in the teacher training partnership, and the importance of trainee self-efficacy towards GIS.

Previous research on children’s wellbeing indicators has focused extensively on adults’, rather than children’s perspectives, despite there being a broad consensus that children’s conceptualisations differ significantly from adults’. In response, this study aimed to explore what constitutes children’s wellbeing through their drawings and discussions. Ninety-one seven and eight-year old children from two primary schools in areas of relatively high deprivation in eastern England participated in this study. We identified indicators of wellbeing that were made explicit in children’s drawings, such as the need for safety, happiness and positive relationships, but also indicators that remained rather implicit, such as the environment and nature. The drawings in particular illustrated that children’s perceptions of wellbeing were subject to the affordances of their favourite spaces for emotional, mental physical and material wellbeing. Access to nature and outdoor spaces was interconnected with all these affordances. We analysed these findings through the theoretical lenses of positive psychology, self-actualisation, social mentality and the human-nature relationship. We argue that making nature explicit, and restoring the interconnectedness between the arts and nature in the current literature, should be a key priority for future research and practice on children’s wellbeing indicators.