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Halfway into the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) timeline, we deemed fruitful an injunction into current teacher education (TE) practices at higher educational institutes (HEIs). The scoping literature review used all known English nomenclature interrelating to environment, sustainability, development, and education as regards TE. We explicated and modelled the data through timelines favourable to UN initiatives within a spatiotemporal metric. Thematic research topics and research methodologies strictly pertaining to TE were rigorously researched and delineated. Our study aims to elucidate a grander picture of the trends-as-patterns of environmental and sustainability education in teacher education (ESE-TE) research in HEI and potential contributions to come.

The spatiotemporal study adopts a scoping review as an investigative tool to probe current research trends on ESE-TE in the academic literature with respect to thematic research topics and research methodologies midway through the SDGs.

A total of 2,142 research papers spanning five decades, 152 journals and 96 countries were screened equally by two researchers. Of the 788 papers deemed eligible (i.e. English-language, peer-reviewed, pre-service/in-service TE that explicitly mentioned ESE-TE research), data from 638 studies have been included in the authors’ study.

Comprehensive trends in the international literature of all known environmental and sustainable education nomenclature specific to international ESE-TE research throughout the time period (1974 – 2021) were identified. Value is accrued by illuminating international trends in research topics and methodologies, exposing gaps in the history of the subfield, and predicting future trends for Agenda 2030 (e.g. SDG 4 – education) to mature the field.

Educational institutions are facing a growing number of challenges, which impair their ability to provide high quality and effective educational services. The involvement of pupils in co-creating learning experiences is a fundamental ingredient of the recipe for increased educational quality. Inter alia, the implementation of citizen science initiatives at schools allows pupils to be active co-producers of educational services. The purpose of this paper to shed light on the attributes of citizen science projects targeted at pupils (aged between six and ten) attending primary schools, in order to identify their potential implications in terms of educational services’ quality improvement.

Secondary data were collected from the Scistarter® web platform. Projects addressed to primary schools and provided with specific classroom materials were taken into consideration (n=65). A qualitative, comparative and bird’s eye analysis was performed: first, looking at the role and the tasks assigned to pupils, the projects were grouped in four categories; second, the potential implications of citizen science on educational services’ quality were investigated.

Citizen science at school paves the way for pupils’ empowerment and for their direct involvement in the co-production of educational services. Moreover, it enhances the relationship between teachers and pupils, engaging them in a co-creating partnership intended at addressing real scientific issues at school. However, citizen science is still poorly integrated into conventional educational curricula in primary schools.

From a management point of view, citizen science is thought to contribute to the improvement of educational services’ quality, stimulating pupils to partner with their peers and with teachers for the purpose of knowledge co-production; in addition, it allows for the enrichment of educational activities in primary schools. From a policy perspective, citizen science at school harmonizes with the democratization of scientific knowledge.

This is one of the first research papers to demonstrate the potential implications of citizen science on educational services’ quality and effectiveness in primary schools.