Learning about Confucian ecological ethics to promote education for sustainable development in Chinese secondary chemistry education

1 Introduction

Developments in science and technology are the base for economic and social development in industrialized and developing countries. The development raises the quality of daily life, e.g., by the availability of many new products developed by chemistry. The rapid progress of many societies in the last decades, however, also caused severe environmental challenges, such as climate change, environmental pollution, biodiversity loss, etc. To take up with these challenges, the United Nations (UN) coined the concept of sustainable development in the late 1980s, meaning that the development should meet the present generation’s needs, but also concern the needs and chances of future generations (UN, 1987).

Although sustainable development has had many definitions during the previous decades, the essential meanings are similar and provide strategic frameworks for the sustainable development of the Earth (Burmeister et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2010). Three central dimensions of sustainable development were suggested: Ecological, social, and economic sustainability (UNESCO, 2005). Environmental sustainability ensures ecological integrity so that ecosystems maintain their functionality and provide the necessary evolutionary capacity to adapt to environmental changes. Social sustainability refers to realizing and maintaining social well-being and equity and includes elements such as social participation and cultural identities. Economic sustainability requires a society to utilize natural resources effectively and responsibly. The economy should be operated sustainably to obtain sustainable profits with economic growth (Khajuria et al., 2009; UNESCO, 2005; Yang et al., 2010).

In some sustainability models, culture is regarded as the fourth pillar of sustainability. Cultural action is the foundation of a sustainable society. Cultural respect and diversity can effectively promote sustainability (Hawkes, 2001; Nurse, 2007). Confucianism is one of the most influential traditional cultures in East Asia, such as in mainland China. It was founded by the Chinese philosopher, politician, and educator Confucius around 2500 years ago (Fung, 1953; Li et al., 2023). Confucianism articulates moral, ethical, and social codes and values at all aspects of society for different classes of people to bring a stable, harmonious, and peaceful society, such as humanely treating others with Confucian propriety (more detailed explanations are discussed in Li et al., 2023). It has constantly developed to become a systemic culture and philosophy influencing Eastern Asian people’s behaviors, attitudes, thinking, and ways of living (Feng & Newton, 2012; Li et al., 2023).

Confucian ecological ethics (CEE) is a unique wisdom of seeing the natural environment. Recently, Li et al. (2023) identified the many connections between Confucianism and sustainable development concepts. CEE advocates humans kindly and harmoniously living with all creatures and things in nature together, i.e., Confucian harmony between nature and humans. It states that humans and nature are constantly interacting and integrated into one system, which is the unity of humans and nature (tian ren he yi). People should benevolently treat all creatures and wisely and frugally utilize natural resources depending on nature’s principles. Harmonism is the core idea of CEE (Li et al., 2023). It represents the harmoniousness among self, others, society, and the natural environment, where they can friendly and respectfully live together with benevolence, and differences could be existed. Confucian education encourages an individual to become a noble person (Junzi, an ideal person with Confucian virtues) through self-cultivation with moral practices and Confucian values which aligns Confucianism with many goals of sustainable behaviors (Li et al., 2023; Tu, 2001). For instance, Confucian wisdom means a person should have certain knowledge to deal with issues and carry out rational actions for moral practices. In parallel, individuals should be equipped with knowledge and take actions about related issues for sustainable development (Li et al., 2023).

Education for sustainable development (ESD) was raised for promoting sustainable development through formal, informal, or non-formal education. ESD intends to empower current and future generations and equip them with informed decision-making ability, rational action competence and attitudes, and knowledge and skills related to the local or global implementation of sustainable development (UNCED, 1992). The UN (2015) proposed quality education as the sustainable development goal no. 4, which includes the target to ensure to provide people with knowledge and skills for sustainable lifestyles by 2030. ESD is suggested to encompass features of interdisciplinary and systems thinking, values orientation, nurturing critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making abilities, diverse instructional methods, and local and global features (Burmeister et al., 2012; UNESCO, 2005).

Science education plays a pivotal role in forwarding ESD, not only by the teaching and learning of science but also by learning about science and its role in life and society. Scientific knowledge and technology are the groundwork for modern civilizations and highly affect current citizens’ lives, society, the natural environment, and the economy (Feinstein & Kirchgasler, 2015). It is suggested that also traditional cultures are respected and highlighted in science education, at least in non-Western modern societies (Ogawa, 1989). Especially, values- or wisdom-oriented approaches to science education are suggested to contribute to ESD by integrating local wisdom or cultures (e.g., Colucci-Gray et al., 2013; Zidny et al., 2020). Murray (2015) raised a values-driven Vision III of scientific literacy that includes multi-cultural perspectives on scientific worldviews for sustainability in the sciences (e.g., chemistry). It shows modern chemistry education needs to not only teach students’ related chemistry knowledge, but also foster them with certain values, attitudes and behaviors for a sustainable world. Confucian harmony between nature and humans can offer Chinese perspectives on dealing with global sustainability issues, benefiting to stressing the cultural aspect of scientific literacy in chemistry education for sustainability in mainland China (Li et al., 2023, 2024).

Socio-scientific issues (SSI) based science education addresses authentic and controversial societal problems (Sadler, 2004), like many sustainability challenges of today. It is considered as one of the most promising approaches for promoting science education for ESD (Burmeister et al., 2012; Juntunen & Aksela, 2014). SSI-based science education has features of authenticity, relevance, openness for discussion and evaluation, and potential for the learning of and about science (Marks & Eilks, 2009). It means SSIs are authentic, relevant to students’ life, controversial in society, and only understandable by knowledge from science and technology. SSI-based science education can be beneficial in nurturing students’ cognitive development and moral cultivation to prepare future citizens and achieve scientific literacy with informed decision-making abilities and scientific understandings (Sadler, 2004; Sjöström & Eilks, 2018; Zeidler et al., 2005).

China is an industrializing country with fast growth of the economy and social development, especially during the past 40 years. However, it also faces environmental pollution and other side effects. So ESD became an essential component of Chinese educational policy. As mentioned above, Li et al. (2023) depicted that CEE has strong connections with sustainable development concepts and may have a promising potential for promoting Chinese science education.

In this article, an SSI-based approach for promoting Chinese chemistry education for sustainability in connection to Confucianism was chosen for curriculum design. It combines a locally relevant philosophical view and an authentic SSI. It focuses on CEE and the societal, scientific, and environmental aspects of plastic use.

2 Background

3 Research aims and questions

This study focuses on CEE in Chinese secondary chemistry education and digs into students’ perceptions. The teaching intervention was inspired by Park et al. (2022) and de Waard et al. (2020). It is to nurture students’ sustainability-related abilities, such as communication and argumentation abilities, environmental-friendly attitudes, decision-making abilities, and social responsibility competence (Wiek et al., 2011).

The research questions are:

1. What are students’ perceptions of a teaching intervention about integrating CEE into SSI-based chemistry education for ESD?

2. What are students’ views of the potential role of CEE in secondary chemistry education in mainland China?

4 The lesson plan design and implementation

Lee et al. (2020) elucidated that teachers should pay attention to the following aspects of SSI-based science instruction in East Asian countries: The lesson should be built as a cooperative environment, showing the reasons for discussion, and presenting uncertainty in the application of science. In this case, the learning design used the tandem cooperative learning method, in which individuals finish tasks first, discuss the results with their partners to achieve common or similar solutions, and then display their views to the whole class. The instructor mainly facilitates students’ learning by introducing the topic, raising questions, observing, guiding, offering help, and assessing students’ learning. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic policy in China, this course was designed as online teaching, and related media was used, such as Tencent meeting, Tencent Docs, and Padlet.

The teaching intervention consists of three parts: the introduction, the understanding of CEE in connection to sustainability thinking, and the application of Confucianism and sustainability thinking within an SSI on the plastic used for takeout food containers (Table 1). The intervention lasted 135 min.

The introduction phase started with a short edited video on plastic pollution with Chinese subtitles (the original video can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_HBgvmrhGU&t=4s). A question of what actions we should take for the future of the Earth was followed. It was to provoke the view on sustainable development and CEE. Furthermore, teaching content, method, goals, and assessment were introduced.

In the second phase, two short articles about CEE and sustainable development concepts were provided. The texts were compiled from Chinese mainstream public media and academic articles (Khajuria et al., 2009; Wang, 2016). Both texts were modified to be comprehensible for high school students. The compiled versions were checked by an experienced high school chemistry teacher and a science education expert. The article on CEE consists of core ideas, such as the unity of humans and nature, harmonism, benevolence, rationally using natural resources relying on time and natural patterns, modern perspectives of CEE, etc. The sustainable development article contains the three core ideas of sustainable development, ecological benignity, social equity, and economic feasibility, including their relationship. Every two students formed a tandem. One student first marked the key sentences in one article, e.g., in Tencent docs, concluded the main ideas, prepared a short presentation, and shared it with his or her partner. After that, the second student presented her or his work on the other article. Students were asked to discuss and compare the two texts. The two students were asked to further discuss the differences and similarities between CEE and sustainable development concepts and create a Venn diagram (Park et al., 2022) to show the relationships. Finally, all tandems shared their diagrams with the whole class, and other students were asked for comments.

Students were required to write one public service advertisement advocating sustainable development and CEE (within 40 Chinese characters). This was to apply students’ understanding of sustainable development and CEE and build their connection between themself and society, based on the modern explanation of the Confucian unity of humans and nature (Tu, 2001). One public service advertisement, “The Conservation of Biological Diversity and the Establishment of Ecological Civilization Together” (https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Yv41177B5/?vd_source=775c8fbc673aab242a5935ce69d1f5c4) was provided, as an example. Students showed their solutions, and others evaluated with thumbs-ups or provided comments on a Padlet.

To inspire students to think more deeply about Confucianism in the context of chemistry education for ESD, a further question was raised: “Do you think Chinese high school chemistry textbooks should properly add any CEE?” This question was addressed since the latest Chinese high school chemistry textbooks mentioned sustainable development rather than CEE (People’s Education Press, Curriculum and Textbook Institute & Chemistry Curriculum and Textbook Research and Development Center, 2019). Students were instructed to discuss in groups and present their positions and arguments to the class on a Padlet. All students were asked to comment on the given arguments. They further discussed their views in a plenary meeting.

In the final phase, data on the plastic used in takeaway food services was presented. The presentation was followed by the authentic context in public consultations on plastics used in takeout food services from China’s National Development and Reform Commission: “The Announcement on inquiring public opinions on the draft of the catalog of prohibited and restricted plastic products in production, sale and use” (https://hd.ndrc.gov.cn/yjzx/yjzx_add.jsp?SiteId=332). The discussion centered around the question: Should conventional disposable plastic takeout food containers be added to the Catalog of Plastic Products Prohibited and Restricted in Production, Sale, and Use in China? The conventional and alternative plastic takeout food containers mostly discussed are based on PP and PLA, respectively. PLA and PP were briefly introduced with information, such as chemical structures, manufacturing processes, biodegradability, etc. The chemical structures of PP and PLA were displayed for students’ discussion of the differences. This introduction was carried out by students watching a short edited video with Chinese subtitles to provide scientific expertise for the SSI (The original video link, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eGOyAiNIQ&list=PLHI39OgEVkP38JuvQZReGFRL0Fbe8iwZ-&index=20&t=290s).

Students formed small groups to discuss and suppose positions and views from the perspective of CEE on banning conventional disposable plastic takeout food containers or not. The core opinions and arguments about this issue from society were presented in information cards. One critical review essay (500–800 words) was to be written by the groups as their homework assignment. The essay had to be related to the students’ positions and viewpoints or arguments on the issue of the ban use of conventional disposable plastic takeout food containers, concerning the public perspectives, sustainable development, CEE, and scientific knowledge. They also had to prepare 60-s short presentations to the class about the main idea of their essay, and the others were asked to assess them. Finally, by presenting, assessing, and discussing the presentations, students had a chance to further understand the complexity of dealing with an SSI in the foreground of CEE and sustainability thinking.

5 Sample and method

The lesson plan was implemented online due to the COVID-19 pandemic policy in January 2023. It was operated at an urban public high school in Beijing (China) where students have high levels of studying achievements. Before the class, the chemistry teacher briefly introduced this lesson and the teaching goals.

Sixty-five students (26 males and 39 females from four 10th-grade classes, age range 15–16) voluntarily signed up to take the lesson. The chemistry teacher assigned every two students one studying group, allowing them to change their groups ahead of the class slightly. The students had learned chemical bonding and organic chemistry at the preliminary level. The first author taught the intervention. The students attended and finished the course, and then filled the feedback questionnaires. The chemistry teacher was an assistant and observer to observe students’ learning and offer help as students needed, and filled in one observation form about students’ learning and the teaching methods.

After the lesson, the whole class reflected on the course with a feedback questionnaire with three open-ended (shown in the following section) and 12 Likert scale questions (4-step). The questionnaire evaluated students’ experiences and perceptions of the lesson, such as their interest in learning, teaching method, relevance to the curriculum, and their views on incorporating CEE into chemistry education.

Finally, 63 students filled out the questionnaire. The open-ended and Likert questions in the students’ feedback questionnaires were evaluated by qualitative content analysis according to Mayring (2014) and descriptive statistics, respectively. For the qualitative analysis, two raters took two rounds of analyzing students’ answers to the open-ended questions. In the first round, the two raters independently analyzed the data and inductively formulated categories and themes with an agreement percentage rate of 85 %. The disagreed or unclear parts were further discussed to reach an agreement. In the second round, the two raters further analyzed the data to achieve a category system to show the students’ answers to open-ended questions in the questionnaire. The final inter-rater reliability was very good with Cohen’s kappa value of κ = 0.876 (Po = 0.976, Pe = 0.809; the agreement rate was 98 %). Students’ assignments and the teacher’s observations were also used to interpret the feedback and teaching results.

6 Findings and discussion

The students’ answers to the Likert items are shown in Figure 1. Most students enjoyed learning this topic of CEE linked with chemistry education for sustainability with high interest and appreciated the teaching pedagogy. The student perceived to have gained certain learning abilities, including increasing environmentally friendly awareness and social responsibility. Most students (with answers of nearly 90 % strongly agreed, agreed, or partially agreed) were interested in this topic of lessons and motivated to learn chemistry in Items 1 and 3. The learners liked the instructing and learning methods (nearly 80 % strongly agreed or agreed, and only 2 % disagreed with Item 2). They also felt trained with cooperative learning and communication (63 % disagreed with item 4). These were in parallel with answers to the open-ended question: What is your satisfaction with the lesson (with a scale of 0–5, from low to high), and what are the good parts or the parts to be improved?

Figure 1:

The results of students’ Likert items in the feedback questionnaire (N = 63).

On average, students gave 4.3 out of 5 on the satisfaction scale, and 82 % thought the course was 4 or 5. Fifty students pinpointed that the lessons were designed well and innovatively (32) or the content was significant (18). 14 students hoped that more case studies or more detailed information about Confucianism and sustainability would be provided or the online learning platform could be improved. For instance, the followings were some quotations from the students’ answers. “Although it was implemented online, cooperative learning of connecting chemical knowledge and environmental issues, and integrating hot, social issues [with CEE ] were worthwhile in this lesson topic. I hope this activity can have a constant influence on future activities. ” “The learning plan, interaction, and learning tasks were very impressive; no more improvement was needed.” “The questions raised were very interesting; the topic was relevant to our daily life and innovative.” “The content was very valuable, and it connected the two [sustainable development and CEE] that were seemingly unrelated…” The chemistry teacher also said most students actively participated in class, and they were accredited to the teaching method regarding students’ classroom behaviors and expressions.

The lesson plan also seemed to have improved students’ perceptions of chemistry and the related areas. Most of the students (92 % strongly agreed or agreed with Item 5) considered that chemistry classes need to encompass issues of society, environment, economy, and culture. It also made most of them feel they understood the complexities of chemical issues (93 % strongly agreed, agreed, or partially agreed in Item 7). Eighty-two percent agreed this topic was relevant to them (Item 6). Their viewpoints about adding CEE into the high school curriculum were as follows: 65 % agreed, and 14 % disagreed (Item 9). These were similar to their arguments in one assignment in the class: Should CEE be included in Chinese high school chemistry textbooks? 39 agreed; otherwise, 26 disagreed. The students who agreed stated that CEE could assist in understanding sustainable development. They also mentioned that localization at the global age is essential, integrating science and culture with benevolence or valued orientation is urgent for future citizens, etc. However, some students who disagreed commented that CEE is not science without strict experiments and data. They saw it as already included in sustainability thinking. In general, most students acknowledged the potentially positive role of CEE in sustainability-oriented chemistry education in China.

Lastly, most students approved that CEE can benefit their understanding of sustainable development, provide local wisdom to global issues, and facilitate achieving sustainable chemistry (94 % strongly agree, agree, or partially agree in Items 8, 10, and 11). Their environmental awareness and social responsibility with future actions were enhanced by this topic (81 % strongly agreed or agreed, and 6 % disagreed with Item 12). This is visible in one group’s writing a public service advertisement: “Harmonism will create new things, achieving sustainable development; sameness will not, facilitating the biological prosperity.” This quote matches students’ answers to the open-ended question: What is the most important content you have learned from this topic of lessons? 47 students (75 %) thought they had learned the relationship between CEE and sustainable development, and both concepts have many perspectives in common. Twenty-six students (41 %) also reflected that CEE plays a vital role in environmental protection and can be beneficial to reach chemistry education for ESD in China. For example, one student said: “I studied the most important content was CEE connecting with chemistry, and its application in our life, providing a basis to understand sustainable development.” One of the students wrote, “I learned Confucian ecologic ethics also has a tight connection with the modern environmental protection idea, sustainable development.” Another student stated: “Culture also can have a subjective effect on science.” The chemistry teacher also insisted that deeply understanding CEE could assist in fostering students’ environmental-friendly attitudes and behaviors.

Furthermore, students pointed out the active role of CEE in chemistry education in the related open-ended question, where they were asked to write down the 1–2 core viewpoints about the role of CEE in Chinese chemistry education. Thirty-seven students claimed CEE could connect science and culture to form Chinese sustainable chemistry research with values or moral orientation; 30 students considered that it could attach to environmental issues and enhance people’s environmental-friendly awareness, social responsibility, and actions; and 27 students expressed that it can be closer to our daily life, and increase students’ learning interest, and cultural confidence.

The answers from the students imply that they agreed on the moral function of CEE in chemistry education for sustainability. CEE can foster social responsibility and motivate students to learn chemistry. For instance, one student wrote, “Researchers should rationally use natural resources as doing chemical innovation, and propose and research better products to replace non-recyclable products.” Another student wrote: “Confucian unity of humans and nature stresses the harmonism of humans and nature. However, learning chemistry is to know and utilize chemistry knowledge and take social responsibility. Confucianism as Eastern wisdom has special understandings of sustainable development, and connects with the contents of sustainable development from chemistry textbooks, which can make students deeply understand sustainable development.” Another student added: “I think that Chinese traditional culture connecting with chemistry education is a very creative starting point, which also reflects our cultural pride at the same time. Additionally, it can smoothly bring our daily examples, make us more interested in the topic and learn more.” One student also mentioned that some chemical reactions were presented in Confucianism, i.e., such as clothes dying in the Analects, or chemical reactions described by Confucianist Ge Hong. “So things may gain when they seem to lose, or lose when they seem to gain” (Xu, 2011). It is similar to chemical equilibrium shifted by changing the amount of products or reactants.

All in all, this teaching intervention is in accordance with Li’s (2022) findings that Chinese secondary chemistry education fusing the traditional culture with a lesson topic on chemical properties of elemental carbon could enhance students’ cultural confidence and moral cultivation. Li (2022) used classical phrases about the rational utilization of natural resources to show ancient Chinese environmental friendliness ideas. He also pointed out that the collected materials related to Chinese traditional culture should have logical connections with specific chemistry knowledge, such as archaeological discoveries and classical literature. It is also following Peng and Zhang (2022) who pinpointed that chemistry education merged with traditional cultures can motivate students’ learning, open their minds, and shape their values and worldviews by learning chemical knowledge of sulfur from Chinese classics books in a historical view. These teaching interventions showcased the sound potential of integrating local wisdom and cultures with science education, like it was also reported for incorporating indigenous minority science knowledge in science education (Zidny & Eilks, 2020). Comparing with Li et al. (2024), the authors found that more students were engaged in learning and recognized the potential role of Confucianism in chemistry education for ESD in this research by stronger focusing the philosophical context for students’ deep understanding of CEE and sustainable development.

7 Conclusions

Incorporating CEE into chemistry education is quite new to Chinese high school students. According to the students’ feedback and assignments, the authors can find that this lesson plan catalyzed their values or worldview changes with positive results on their environmental awareness. It triggered new ways of thinking, such as being more open-minded towards science and humanism. Hence, this philosophical context provided chances for multiple perspectives for students’ solving SSIs (Broggy et al., 2017; Park et al., 2022). Students’ thinking and discussion also benefited the teacher. For instance, one group of students proposed the differences and similarities between CEE and sustainable development in Figure 2. They thought sustainable development has a more powerful execution than CEE, and the latter is more gentle with benevolence. The former is societal-centered, and the latter focuses on individual cultivation with the features of Confucian education, such as being a noble person (Junzi). This also might be a difference between Western modern and Eastern cultural views (Li et al., 2023), and elaborating on this difference was also new for the teacher.

Figure 2:

One student group’s solution example of similarities and differences between CEE and sustainable development in a Venn diagram.

The implementation showed the sound potential role of CEE in Chinese ESD-oriented chemistry education, from students’ positions. It can contribute to enhancing scientific literacy from an angle of the cultural aspect. However, this is a long way to go. Some students thought science and culture should be separated. It was in line with Zhang and Liu’s (2021) conclusion based on one societal debate of humanism and science in the late 2010s in mainland China. They suggested that the enhancement of the nature of science should be emergent. The chemistry teacher in this case, also suggested that future studies should look for topics with positive figures of China, and some ideas of Chinese traditional cultures can be used worldwide. However, students’ interest in learning and confidence in the traditional culture was present in this research. In-service chemistry teachers might play an essential role in promoting culture-oriented and SSI-based science education in China. Even though the new Chinese high school chemistry curriculum standards highlighted fusing traditional cultures in chemistry classrooms, it might urgently need to train chemistry teachers with more cultural awareness and effective strategies.

This study has some limitations. The lesson was online tested only with a limited number of students with only three periods of chemistry classes in one school; students’ learning achievements and class sizes might not be the most representative, for China has a vast territory and school contexts might have quite differences from the east to the west. More case studies about integrating science and culture will be needed with more students to fully exploit the potential of incorporating non-Western philosophical views into science education to prepare learners for a sustainable future in a diverse world.