**5. Transforming the world toward a more sustainable future**

Students need to develop a variety of complex skills and values predicated on critical thinking and the synthesis of interdisciplinary content to be successful in

#### *The Goals of Science Education Should Be Linked to the Central Tenets of Sustainable… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.114114*

transforming the world towards a more sustainable future [24, 52, 53]. They need to be able to evaluate the veracity of claims presented to them by candidates for elected office, weighing their personal values against those of the candidates. They need to be able to analyze the complex interrelationships of factors involved in the production and consumption of goods against their values so they may make responsible decisions around their participation in commerce, unphased by greenwashing practices. They also need the skills to problem solve, design, and evaluate solutions, work as members of a team, and communicate their ideas so they may shape the future of science and technology [54]. These skills can either be nurtured by or suppressed by educators.

Paulo Freire's emancipatory, citizenship-focused framework for education emphasized the power of dialogics, as both a means of acquiring knowledge and an epistemological relationship, a way of knowing in and of itself [55]. When education is exercised as a mere conveyance or passage of information from educators to students, rather than an exercise towards preparation for the social functions of citizenship, he argued, it is being wielded as a tool of oppression. In *Teaching to Transgress*, bell hooks emphasize the liberatory power of education. She describes the contrast between how the anti-hegemonic politics of her early all-black education contrasted with the stifling white-centric atmospheres of the classrooms she encountered throughout her collegiate and graduate education experience [56]. Many modern well-meaning science educators and institutions engage in practices resembling the latter, often through the lens of positive intent, believing preparing students to score high on standardized exams will launch them into positions of power and thereby liberate them. This oversimplified misunderstanding of the dynamics of oppression fails to nurture the critical thinking, self-study skills, intrinsic motivation to continue learning, and contextual understanding needed to foster active participation in shaping the world. What use will the possession of large sums of 'banking knowledge' (see Ref. [55]) afford students when they are demoralized and dehumanized by the learning experience? Students deserve the power to confront sustainability, equity, and social justice issues from an interdisciplinary framework. They need educational opportunities to empower them to be socially responsible agents of change through critical, action-oriented, and reflective pedagogy [57]. The pedagogical practices of Socio Scientific Issues education (SSI) and Science, Technology, Society and Environment (STSE) are approaches seeking to provide these opportunities by exploring explicitly the interconnectedness of science and society while helping students develop their own morals and ethical frameworks for decision making [58]. Students harness the engaging power of controversy to stimulate curiosity and rich educational discussions in the classroom. Moreover, students marvel at the novel opportunity to develop and share their own informed opinions.
