Abstract:

This study explores the pedagogical strategies employed by lecturers across three higher education institutions to promote meaningful engagement with Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in pre-service Life Sciences teacher training programmes. Guided by a qualitative interpretivist design, data were generated through document review and semi-structured interviews and analysed thematically to identify key trends and underlying pedagogical orientations. The analysis was further informed by the Semantic Dimension of Karl Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), with particular attention to the constructs of Semantic Gravity (SG) and Semantic Density (SD). Through this lens, the study examined how lecturers construct and navigate semantic waves, illustrating the movement between abstract theoretical constructs and concrete classroom applications. The findings from this study reveal that lecturers across the three participating institutions employ a diverse range of pedagogical strategies to facilitate meaningful engagement with EE and ESD within pre-service Life Sciences teacher training programmes. These strategies move beyond the conventional didactic instruction and reflect an emerging commitment to learner-centred, inquiry-based and contextually responsive teaching practices. By demonstrating how semantic movements shape the accessibility and depth of disciplinary understanding, the study contributes to the growing body of scholarship on LCT-informed curriculum analysis. It highlights the importance of pedagogical intentionality in bridging theory and practice and accentuates the potential of semantic analysis as a tool for evaluating and enhancing the integration of EE and ESD in teacher training.

Keywords:

Environmental education, education for sustainable development, life sciences, pre-service teachers, pedagogy.