Interdisciplinarity as the Key to Efficient Education for Sustainable Development: Main Benefits and Challenges – A Nanotechnology Case Study

Nowadays, one may observe a growing interest in sustainable development as the auspicious way to resolve global civilisation problems (www.undp.org). This leads to the increasing role of proper Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Although there are many approaches to the strategy of efficient teaching (UNESCO 2012), in times of narrow specialization interdisciplinarity is frequently undervalued (Klein 1990). In this paper, the author brings attention to the question of interdisciplinarity in a broader context: its constantly changing definition, common ground with sustainability, main advantages of such a way of thinking, crucial difficulties, and hints aimed at how to introduce it to one’s own teaching tools. As a case study, the teaching of nanotechnology (Meyer 2001) will be used to provide additional examples, share experiences, and make the connection between theory and practice. The aim is to disseminate the idea of interdisciplinarity as a key to efficient ESD in many domains.