Extended abstract
Extended abstract In today's rapidly evolving world, societies face complex challenges that span environmental, social, and economic dimensions, as framed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (UNESCO, 2020). These global goals provide a framework for addressing urgent sustainability issues, and education plays a critical role in preparing students to contribute meaningfully to these efforts. Particularly in secondary education, there is growing recognition that traditional, siloed approaches are insufficient for equipping students with the skills needed to tackle these real-world problems. By confronting students with the complexity of sustainability early on, they can develop critical competencies such as systems thinking, collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving, which are essential for navigating the uncertainties of the future and building a more sustainable society. One way of addressing these skills is through interdisciplinary education (McPhail, 2018; Tonnetti & Lentillon-Kaestner, 2023). That is, sustainability issues such as climate change, resource depletion, and social inequality are not confined to a single discipline but require solutions that integrate knowledge and skills from multiple fields (Thibaout et al., 2018). Interdisciplinarity has been widely recognized as a valuable mechanism for education for sustainable development (ESD) (Liu et al., 2022; Weinberg & McMeeking, 2017). One approach that answers the call for interdisciplinary education for addressing the complex and global issues we currently face, is Challenge-based learning (CBL). CBL is an interdisciplinary approach designed to tackle complex global issues by integrating traditional education with real-world problems, with a core focus on taking action (Johnson & Adams, 2011). These problems require creative, innovative, and collaborative solutions involving students, teachers, and external stakeholders (Sukacké et al., 2022). While the benefits of interdisciplinarity in addressing global challenges in the context of ESD are widely acknowledged, its integration in secondary education remains limited (Tonnetti & Lentillon-Kaestner 2023). Poorly implemented interdisciplinarity can result in fragmented learning, knowledge gaps, and difficulties in managing the breadth of information students receive (McPhail, 2018; Tonnetti & Lentillon-Kaestner, 2023). Several factors contribute to these limitations, including (1) the highly discipline-based structure of schools, which necessitates significant curriculum changes (Weinberg & McMeeking, 2017), (2) teachers’ reluctance to teach outside their expertise (Tonnetti & Lentillon-Kaestner, 2023), and (3) the logistical challenges and time-consuming nature of preparing interdisciplinary lessons, compounded by insufficient support from school leadership (Tonnetti & Lentillon-Kaestner, 2023). To overcome interdisciplinary obstacles, educational systems require fundamental changes to integrate ESD fully (Taylor et al., 2019). In the Netherlands, schools have autonomy to include ESD, but it's not mandatory, leading to small-scale, teacher-driven innovations that face challenges in broader integration within the existing educational framework (de Wolf & de Hamer, 2015). Despite the well-recognized benefits of interdisciplinarity in CBL and ESD for addressing complex real-world problems, and the acknowledged obstacles posed by the current structure of secondary education, there is limited research on how teachers navigate these barriers to implement interdisciplinary CBL for ESD in secondary education. This study aims to map the pathways teachers take in overcoming these obstacles and how they approach interdisciplinary education through CBL. A qualitative approach was employed, utilizing document analysis and semi-structured interviews for data collection. Document analysis involved reviewing curriculum documents, including learning objectives, lesson activities, and formal and informal assessments, such as rubrics and formative evaluations throughout the CBL project. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather rich, in-depth information on teachers' CBL projects and their approach to interdisciplinary teaching. The combination of these methods allowed for triangulation of the data, offering a comprehensive understanding of how interdisciplinary teaching is implemented and reflected in current CBL for ESD practices. The findings of this study will provide valuable insights into how teachers navigate interdisciplinary boundaries, contributing to a deeper understanding of how CBL can be effectively integrated into secondary education to support ESD. This includes practical recommendations for designing interdisciplinary curricula, fostering collaboration among teachers from different disciplines, and more effectively integrating sustainability themes into lessons. Additionally, this study could serve as a starting point for schools to reform curriculum structures to promote interdisciplinarity in secondary education by, for example, allowing for greater flexibility in the curriculum to accommodate interdisciplinary CBL projects that address real-world sustainability issues. Future research could build on these findings by exploring the role of external stakeholders, such as industry and community organizations, in supporting interdisciplinary education for sustainable development, providing further insights into the effectiveness of CBL. References de Wolf, M., de Hamer, A. (2015). Education for Sustainable Development in the Netherlands. In: Jucker, R., Mathar, R. (eds) Schooling for Sustainable Development in Europe. Schooling for Sustainable Development, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09549-3_20 Johnson, L., & S. Adams (2011) Challenge based learning: The report from the Implementation Project. The New Media Consortium. Liu, J., Watabe, Y. & Goto, T. (2022). Integrating sustainability themes for enhancing interdisciplinarity: a case study of comprehensive research university in Japan. Asia Pacific Education Review 23, 695-710. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-022-09788-z McPhail, G. (2017). Curriculum integration in the senior secondary school: a case study in a national assessment context. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 50(1), 56–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2017.1386234 Sukacké, V., Guerra, A.O.P.d.C., Ellinger, D., Carlos, V., Petroniené, S., Gaižiūnienė, L., Blanch, S., Marbà-Tallada, A., & Brose, A. (2022). Towards active evidence-based learning in engineering education. A systematic literature review of PBL, PjBL, and CBL. Sustainability, 14(21). 13955. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142113955 Taylor, N., Quinn, F., Jenkins, K., Miller-Brown, H., Rizk, N., Prodromou, T., Serow, P., & Taylor, S. (2019). Education for sustainability in the secondary sector - A review. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 13(1), 102–122. https://doi.org/10.1177/0973408219846675 Tonnetti, B., & Lentillon-Kaestner, V. (2023). Teaching interdisciplinarity in secondary school: A systematic review. Cogent Education, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186X.2023.2216038 UNESCO. (2020). Education for sustainable development: A roadmap. https://doi.org/10.54675/YFRE1448 Weinberg, A. E., & McMeeking, L. B. S. (2017). Toward meaningful interdisciplinary education: High school teachers’ views of mathematics and science integration. School Science and Mathematics, 117(5), 204-213. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssm.12224
