What do prospective teachers know about sustainable nutrition?
- 08.11.2016
- English Articles
- Anke Hertrampf
- Ute Bender
Peer-reviewed | Manuscript received: February 22, 2016 | Revision accepted: July 06, 2016
Introduction
As laid down by the United Nations Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development (SD), education in sustainable development (ESD) is still supported in the Swiss educational system [1]. ESD is intended to help schoolchildren to think and act for the future. Each pupil should be capable and prepared to make responsible decisions [2]. One important precondition for the successful implementation of ESD in schools is that teachers should be specifically trained in subjects related to ESD [2].
As individual nutritional behaviour is of great significance for SD [3], it is particularly important to support those subjects that aim to develop competence in nutritional and consumption behaviour. In German-speaking Switzerland, this is the case in Secondary School Level I in the subjects “Home Economics” (HE) and “Economics, Work, Household” (EWH). In both Switzerland and Germany, specific lectures on nutrition are planned for both schools and for teacher training. In teacher training, these are conceived as technical-practical courses. They offer a realistic link between theory and practice and give student teachers a good opportunity to integrate sustainable nutritional behaviour into ESD together with their pupils. In particular, these courses could claim to do justice to the wide variety of requirements needed for sustainable nutrition [4]. These include knowledge, ability and skills related to food preparation.
Summary
Sustainable nutritional behaviour is an important contribution to sustainable development. Properly qualified teachers are needed to communicate this to children and adolescents. For this reason, the present study is intended to find out how much student teachers in home economics know about sustainable nutrition and to use the results as a basis for developing specific teaching. The results show that student teachers in home economics possess fundamental content knowledge of sustainable nutrition – even in the initial phase of their course. On the other hand, the foundation of this content knowledge is often one dimensional and is inadequately differentiated. This emphasises where the focus should lie in later phases of the course.
Keywords: Education in Sustainable Development (ESD), sustainable nutrition, nutrition education, consumer education, home economics, sustainability
