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Climate change is one of the most challenging problems facing today's global society (e.g., IPCC 2013). While climate change is a widely covered topic in the media, and abundant information is made available through the internet, the causes and consequences of climate change in its full complexity are difficult for individuals, especially non-scientists, to grasp. Science education is a field which can play a crucial role in fostering meaningful education of students to become climate literate citizens (e.g., NOAA 2009; Schreiner et al., 41, 3-50, 2005). If students are, at some point, to participate in societal discussions about the sustainable development of our planet, their learning with respect to such issues needs to be supported. This includes the ability to think critically, to cope with complex scientific evidence, which is often subject to ongoing inquiry, and to reach informed decisions on the basis of factual information as well as values-based considerations. The study presented in this paper focused on efforts to advance students in (1) their conceptual understanding about climate change and (2) their socioscientific reasoning and decision making regarding socioscientific issues in general. Although there is evidence that "knowledge" does not guarantee pro-environmental behavior (e.g. Schreiner et al., 41, 3-50, 2005; Skamp et al., 97(2), 191-217, 2013), conceptual, interdisciplinary understanding of climate change is an important prerequisite to change individuals' attitudes towards climate change and thus to eventually foster climate literate citizens (e.g., Clark et al. 2013). In order to foster conceptual understanding and socioscientific reasoning, a computer-based learning environment with an embedded concept mapping tool was utilized to support senior high school students' learning about climate change and possible solution strategies. The evaluation of the effect of different concept mapping scaffolds focused on the quality of student-generated concept maps, as well as on students' test performance with respect to conceptual knowledge as well as socioscientific reasoning and socioscientific decision making.

To comprehensively address global environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss, citizens need an understanding of the socio-economic fundamentals of human behaviour in relation to natural resources. We argue that Global Citizenship Education and Education for Sustainable Development provide a core set of socio-economic competencies that can be applied to tackle such challenges. As a central concern of this article, we report on the development of a competence model and its use in an empirical study. The study analyses the ability of German students (n = 268: 232 pupils in senior secondary school and 36 student teachers) to evaluate solutions for real-world Sustainable Development challenges quantitatively. In doing so, we investigate a theoretically described competence dimension, that is, "Evaluating and Reflecting Solutions Quantitatively-Economically." A Rasch partial credit model indicates that "Evaluating and Reflecting Solutions Quantitatively-Economically" can be modelled as a one-dimensional competence. Grade level, general educational performance and high performance in subjects addressing Education for Sustainable Development positively affect "Evaluating and Reflecting Solutions Quantitatively-Economically" scores. Although applying basic economic insights in a quantitative manner to Sustainable Development challenges is within the mathematical skill set of most students, even older or better-performing students find it difficult to do so. Thus, these findings underscore the need for economic competencies to be incorporated in Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Education.

The concept of energy is one key component of science education curricula worldwide. While it is still being taught in many science classrooms from a mainly conceptual knowledge perspective, the need to frame the concept of energy as a socioscientific issue and implement it in the context of citizenship education and education for sustainable development, is getting more and more explicit. As we will be faced with limited fossil fuels and the consequences of global climate change in the future, students have to be supported in becoming literate citizens who are able to reach informed energy-related decisions. In this article, we focus on students' reasoning and decision-making processes about socioscientific energy-related issues. In more detail, we developed a paper-and-pencil measurement instrument to assess secondary school students' competencies in this domain. The functioning of the measurement instrument was analysed with a sample of 850 students from grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 using item response theory. Findings show that the measurement instrument functions in terms of reliability and validity. Concerning student ability, elaborate reasoning and decision-making was characterised by the use of trade-offs and the ability to weigh arguments and to reflect on the structure of reasoning and decision-making processes. The developed measurement instrument provides a complement for existing test instruments on conceptual knowledge about the concept of energy. It aims to contribute to a change in teaching about energy, especially in physics education in the sense of education for sustainable development.

In this paper, we trace selected strands of the German path to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). We start by addressing pre-ESD research, and move to the concept of "Gestaltungskompetenz," the core concept of German ESD. The concept had to be realigned as to become more compatible with international research on learning outcomes (competencies). Compared to its beginnings, the meaning of "Gestaltungskompetenz" has much advanced, e.g., influenced by German competence research in science education, to which the Göttingen Model for socioscientific reasoning and decision making contributes. The paper presents a new competence dimension on "Evaluating and reflecting solutions quantitatively-economically" for this model. The contribution highlights the integrative and interdisciplinary scope of the educational challenges posed by Sustainable Development.

Decision making about socioscientific issues is an important aspect of modern science education worldwide. Among the many topics that represent socioscientific issues, issues relating to the sustainable development of our environment are one crucial topic. However, difficulties exist with respect to the assessment of teaching outcomes related to these issues. This paper presents results from two quantitative studies that were conducted to develop a test instrument that measures students' use of decision-making strategies in situations relating to sustainable development. Data were analyzed using the Rasch partial credit model. Analyses concerning reliability and validity showed that the developed instrument provides an adequate measure of students' use of decision-making strategies. Analyses indicated that the test instrument can be used among different age groups and that decision-making competence increases with respect to years of education. Most elaborate strategies were characterized by the use of trade-offs, the ability to weigh decision criteria, and the ability to reflect on the structure of decision-making processes. In contrast, baselevel strategies were characterized by the use of cutoffs and an absence of elaborate metareflection. The results provide a valuable starting point for analyzing and fostering students' decision-making competence in the science classroom. (Contains 3 figures, 2 tables, and 3 footnotes.)