Sustainability and physics education

Sustainability plays a central role in present and future for human societies and it has become an unavoidable issue in the policy guidelines of organizations like the EU and the UN. Science education needs to face a future that includes and supports the study of sustainability. Physics education can contribute in introducing sustainability by showing how investigation of the physical world is a necessary step in finding sustainable solutions. On the other side, sustainability can convey the interest from everyday reality to scientific concepts, involving the students in new laboratory activities. Moreover, teachers can be engaged in professional development and in active applied physics educational research. Educational actions were designed to introduce the concept of sustainability through meaningful activities in physics education. Early experiences were reserved to small groups of motivated students and few teachers were involved in laboratory. A relevant outcome was the request of developing learning paths for integrating these issues into ordinary didactic in classroom. An interdisciplinary learning path involved all students of a small high school is reported. The next step was to organize a national summer school focused on developing learning paths on topics in science relevant for sustainability, such as energy, food production and pollution in an interdisciplinary approach.