Sustainable development is a concept that many people know of. In today's society, sustainability issues are often discussed in politics, at work, in home and at school. In the Swedish geography teaching at high school and upper secondary school include sustainable development as a subject content. Previous studies show that teachers are teaching about sustainable development in Swedish schools. But few studies are exactly showing what the education contains, what subject content, working methods and what didactic choices the geography teachers are making. There is no clear picture of purely practical teaching on sustainable development except that it ́s conducted at the geography lessons. Previous studies show that teachers has a very important role in how the teaching is designed, from selection of subject content to choose of working methods. This study has investigated how four active geography teachers at the high school and upper secondary school reason about their didactic choices in their teaching. Key issues in this qualitative study are, how teachers interpret sustainable development based on the curriculum, how teaching is practically implemented and what abilities the teachers want their teaching to give the students. The results of the study show that geography teachers choose to divide sustainable development into several smaller subjects. This results in the teacher working with a large variety of different work methods. In some special subject the teacher is more active and the students are passive, while in other subject are the students very active. Students are also given possibilities to reflect on their own sustainability and sustainable development, and also discuss this matters with their classmates. / Hållbar utveckling är ett begrepp som många känner till. I dagens samhälle är hållbarhetsfrågor något som diskuteras flitigt i politiken, på arbetsplatsen, i hemmet och även i skolan. I svensk geografiundervisningen på högstadiet och i gymnasieskolan ska hållbar utveckling ingå som ämnesinnehåll. Den tidigare forskningen visar att undervisningen om hållbar utveckling pågår i svenska skolor men utan att exakt veta vad som utgör ämnesinnehållet, arbetsmetoder och vilka didaktiska val som geografilärare gör. Det finns ingen tydlig bild över rent praktisk undervisning om hållbar utveckling som genomförs på geografilektionerna. Den tidigare forskningen visar på att läraren har mycket stor betydelse i hur undervisningen utformas, allt från urval av ämnesinnehåll till val av arbetssätt. Denna fallstudie har fyra verksamma geografilärare på högstadiet och gymnasieskolan intervjuas kring hur de resonerar kring didaktiska val i undervisningen. Centrala frågeställningar i denna kvalitativa undersökning är, hur lärare tolkar hållbar utveckling utifrån kursplanen, hur undervisningen praktiskt genomförs samt vilka förmågor som lärarna vill att undervisningen ska ge eleverna. Resultatet av undersökningen visar på att geografilärare väljer att dela upp hållbar utveckling i flera arbetsområden. Detta resulterar i att läraren arbetar med stor mångfald av olika arbetssätt. I vissa arbetsområden är läraren mer aktiv och eleverna passiva medan i andra arbetsområden är förhållandet tvärtom. Eleverna ges då också utrymme för att öppet reflektera över olika deras egna hållbarhet och hållbar utveckling, men samtidigt även diskutera dessa frågor med klasskamraterna.

Teaching about sustainable development should permeate all subjects in school. The curriculum for geography states that students must develop the ability to take a stand on “the global challenges of our time and the future based on ecological, social and economic perspectives on sustainable development” (Skolverket, 2022b, p. 1). However, the concept of sustainable development is difficult to define and the curriculum space give teachers in primary school a wide range of choices when it comes to teaching about sustainable development within the subject of geography. The purpose of this survey was therefore to develop knowledge about how teachers in primary school interpret the concept of sustainable development, as well as to investigate how they describe and motivate their teaching regarding sustainable development within the subject of geography.Based on the purpose of the survey, a qualitative interview study was conducted in which six primary school teachers participated. The results showed that the teachers generally interpret the concept of sustainable development from an ecological perspective and in general they teach about how to protect nature and resources. When the results were compared to Öhman´s and Östman´s environmental teaching traditions, it was the normative teaching tradition that was most commonly used. Sustainable development is usually taught thematically or interdisciplinary. The teachers motivate their didactic choices by saying that the working methods are age appropriate and adapted to the students´ level of maturity.