Education for Sustainable Development in Teacher Training Through Multinational Cooperation: Goals, Opportunities, and Challenges

The study of global challenges, such as climate change or water scarcity, requires specific educational concepts. This chapter talks about an international project that conducted parallel courses on geography education for teacher training in Germany, France, and Israel. This international virtual academic collaboration was facilitated using different long-distance communication options. The goal of the project was to enable students to have experiential and meaningful distance learning while implementing ESD in teacher training seminars in geography. The main content of the collaboration was called “Water is Life” which focused on the thematic area of water and was connected to the Erasmus Plus V-Global project. During the seminar, the students developed virtual teaching concepts for geography lessons. The feedback from many of the students indicated that it was an extraordinary opportunity to meet and work together. The project allowed them to discover the issues of water from different perspectives. Multi-linguistic challenges, cultural differences, and online learning difficulties were an integral part of this project and constituted its challenges. Although many obstacles emerged, this project enabled students to use the skills they acquired in their work as future teachers. Finally, the article outlines the conceptual basis and results of the seminar.