Integrating sustainability in mathematics education and statistics education: A systematic review

Abstract

If we are to understand and address today’s social, environmental and economic crises through education, we must introduce education for sustainable development (ESD) into classrooms and approach it from an integrated perspective. In so doing, this study aims to provide an overview of the current status of the still-emerging research agenda on the integration of ESD into mathematical education and statistical education. To this end, we conducted a systematic review of Scopus and Web of Science databases of theoretical and research articles published between 2010 and May 2023. In total, 32 studies were identified, conducted mostly in Europe, followed by South America, which mainly address teacher training. The results suggest that mathematics education and statistics education are an effective means of providing education focused on ESD, but that teachers still have limited knowledge and resistant attitudes. Therefore, initial and ongoing training must move towards characterizing proposals that provide examples and involve teachers in response to this challenge.

Science interdisciplinary learning approach: a study interdisciplinary thinking skills and literacy environment

“…Many studies have shown that environmental literacy including conservation attitudes can be developed in schools and universities [40]. If this model is implemented at the university level, the EfSD education program can be used as a conservation program for an area [41]. Sustainable development competencies can be included in the development of academic programs.…”

Teaching Statistics for Sustainability across Contexts: Exploring the Knowledge and Beliefs of Teachers

“…In this regard, in recent years, there has been a specific line of research that connects statistics education with education on sustainable development, showing that statistics education provides tools to understand and respond to real-life problems [23]. In this sense, there is a need to encourage a teaching of statistics that promotes education for sustainable development.…”

“…In this sense, there is a need to encourage a teaching of statistics that promotes education for sustainable development. Under this perspective, ESD is structured with the purpose of teaching statistics, and, in turn, statistics provides a pretext to train in sustainability [23]. However, there is still much to investigate regarding the integration of statistics and sustainability, especially concerning the design of classroom experiences that facilitate the development of sustainability skills in order to properly characterize them.…”

“…From this perspective, then, it is imperative that teachers offer students, from an early age, learning opportunities across different contexts that promote the development of statistical literacy [16][17][18][19][20][21][22], especially if we consider that, according to [23], statistics education and, therefore, statistics literacy, are presented as an adequate scenario to address one of the greatest challenges in today's world: the promotion of education for sustainable development (ESD). In this regard, we assume that the teaching of statistics has enormous potential to incorporate discussions on problems from students' daily lives and, thus, develop the skills and knowledge necessary to deal with the environmental, social, and economic crises that we face as humanity, which is why we aim to advance the teaching of statistics for sustainability through teaching itineraries that consider a variety of contexts, from the concrete to the abstract.…”

“…Therefore, the success of implementing ESD will be subject to "their opinions, understanding of sustainability and how they incorporate this concept into their pedagogy" [24] (p. 113). In this way, we consider that it is also necessary to pay attention to how teachers envision the integration of statistics education and sustainability [23].…”