This presentation takes its point of departure in recognizing us living in a world of societal changes and environmental crises where needs of new thinking and sustainable actions are demanded. I am here especially focusing a current educational situation roughly described to be in the core of different demands and expectations. Firstly, Education for sustainable development (ESD) is nowadays regarded as a societal issue, where young people’s possibilities to act commonly and engage in society is a crucial aim and outcome in the UNESCO documents. Secondly and quite opposite, the mainstream educational curricula are described to be striving the other direction; towards more control of individual pre-determined knowledge through tests, and with less options of innovations, critical thinking and a knowledge in-use .
Standing in this crossfire of different educational politics and ideas the situation is assumed to be a delicate issue to handle for teachers in practice. This presentation is based on a case study of a “Climate Council school project” (cf. WWF) where school students, teachers and members of the local government met and discussed sustainability issues. I intend to focus and discuss both dilemmas and unexpected possibilities when taking on new educational challenges and transdisciplinary teaching such as sustainable development, and how the concept of Sustainable literacy might be useful in educational settings today.