New Perspectives in Science Education

In September 2015, the United Nations presented the new Agenda for 2030 with 17 goals and 169 targets.. Given the relevance of the citizens’ awareness to achieve the targets of Agenda 2030, more attention should be given to its goals within a school context, thus connecting the learning process with a necessary growing cromprehensive and familiarIty of sustainable development by science teachers.In order to evaluate the Portuguese science teachers’ awareness regarding the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a questionnaire was elaborated and validated by five experts in Education for Sustainable Development. The questionnaire was designed so as to be answered in five minute and comprised two questions, after identifying the age and gender of the respondents: (i) Do you know what 2030 Agenda (of United Nations to Sustainable Development with the aim of changing the world) is?; (ii) Taking into account the aims of Agenda 2030 (which we provided in a sheet of paper), what research questions do you consider to be a priority in Portugal? These questionnaires where administrated after a science teachers’ development course that took place in a public Faculty in the North of Portugal.A content analysis was subsequently performed to the 86 questionnaires (68 females and 18 females). To better analyse the answers to the second question, all the members of the research team independently performed content analysis. They subsequently compared and improved their analysis, until a consensus was reached. Afterwards a descriptive statistical analyses was done.The main evidence shows that only a small number of science teachers are aware of the new aims and targets for Sustainable Development (n=25; 29%). When analysing the  answers to question number two it was verified that all seventeen goals were mention by the respondents. Nevertheless, goal number four (ensure inclusive and quality education) was mention by 27% of the respondents, being the most referred. Goal seventeen (global partnership for sustainable development) was the less mentioned (2%). The results show that more attention should be given to the conceptions and knowledge of science teachers regarding the Agenda 2030 goals and aims.

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