Insights Into a New Format of Education for Sustainable Nutrition in Teacher Education

Abstract

Abstract Education for sustainable nutrition will only succeed if society is given direct access and experience to the obvious benefits of a sustainable lifestyle. An earlier personal and positive association to a sustainable lifestyle makes a dietary shift most likely. Here, the training future teachers plays a central role as a multiplicator. Project-based learning (PBL) is a well-known approach with the purpose of crosslinking theoretical knowledge with real-life practice. Despite many existing PBL approaches, there is a gap of conveniently applicable and easily transferable approaches for ensuring their sustainable integration into teacher education. This study aims to fill this gap by exemplarily leading students to experience edible plant diversity in urban environments via action-oriented learning and out-of-school learning places. The present study outlines the methodological and didactic process and the practical implementation of an innovative sustainable approach of PBL for education for sustainable nutrition in the curriculum of teacher education. The results are discussed on the basis of student feedback and the evaluation of the recent course conducted in 2022 at the Technical University of Berlin. Measured by the outcome of the course, the new concept applied here has a personal impact by that having the potential to facilitate a more sustainable approach of nutrition in our society.