Designing a platform for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): to achieve knowledge, influence attitudes and enable actions for sustainable development

Education is a key foundation on which a sustainable future is build and there is a pressing need to deliver ESD. This entails achieving knowledge and skills, values and attitudes being influenced, and enabling sustainable actions. It has been argued that online and blended leaning in itself is sustainable, but the Covid-19 pandemic made it evident that there are challenges for teachers to deliver competent online and blended learning. Hence, there is a clear need for developing and introducing Digital Learning Resources (DLR) that empowers children to become sustainability change agents in society and in the same time support the teachers in introducing them in online and blended learning. Through a two-year period, scientific associates, teachers, and researchers have been engaged in designing and testing DLR for ESD, aimed at children aged 12-16 years.
The aim of this article is to present and discuss findings from the process from design intention to delivering and testing an online learning platform for ESD. Findings from the design process are based on observations from a Learning design workshop with content creators and teachers and from a co-designing workshop with children interacting with the platform and a semi-structured interview with the lead scientific content associate. To gain in-dept knowledge on how the platform was received, a mixed method was applied. Surveys were distributed to teachers and students testing the platform and group-interviews with both teachers and students were performed.
Findings from the design process unfolds some of the challenges and strengths in the co-design between scientific experts, learning designers and technicians. Furthermore, findings from the platform design approach in the current study point towards the relevance of involving teachers and children in the design process. The testing of the platform indicates that designing for reflections enables students to bring knowledge of sustainable development into play and inspire for sustainable actions in their everyday life.