Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is often pigeon-holed as a concern for the natural science and, to some extent, the social science subjects (Læssøe 2020). Given the practical circumstances and the history of the subject of Danish as a L1/Language arts subject, it is no surprise that teachers hesitate to integrate environmental and sustainability issues in their L1-teaching (Epinion 2021). The L1-focus on literacy and literature may seem remote from or even irrelevant to natural science knowledge on ecosystems, biodiversity etc. (UNESCO 2015). However, our working hypothesis is that the L1-subject by virtues of its roots in arts and humanities (Dewey 1934, Rosenblatt 1994; Myren-Svelstad, 2020, Lysgaard, Bengtsson & Laugesen 2019) has potential for learning practices which bring affective, social and ethical dimensions of ESD-issues to the foreground thereby making a different and important contribution to ESD alongside subjects from the natural and social sciences. Exploring this hypothesis empirically, qualitative ethnographic fieldwork has been carried out in three strategically selected case schools currently adapting UN’s 17 sustainable development goals (so-called 2030 Schools) with the ambition of documenting the ‘doings, saying and relatings’ (Kemmis et al., 2014) of the classroom. In our presentation, we will present theoretical and methodological considerations as well as preliminary findings from the first phases of fieldwork. Findings suggest that there is an ESD-learning potential in aesthetic teaching activities initiated through inquiry-oriented literature teaching practices that enable existential perspectives and student voices on humans’ sustainable relation to each other and the otherness of nature. However, findings also demonstrate how some L1 teachers tend to relapse to traditional teaching formats, for example when forced by local school leadership to take UN’s SDG goals as a point of departure, which leads to student resistance expressed through irony and parody. One implication is that ESD issues need to be ‘translated’/didactizised in subtle ways that resonate with the rationale of the subject vis-a-vis students’ identities.

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