Civil society engagement is key to achieving sustainable development and environmental goals. In addition, students engement is vital in environmental sustainability education (ESE) and its aim to enrich students’ democratic participatory and deliberative way of life. This paper builds on the concept "action competence”. Sass, et al (2020) break down action competence into “the willingness, commitment, knowledge, skills and confidence to engage in finding solutions to controversial problems or issues” (p. 6). In addition, Öhman & Sund (2021) argue that the commitment is “crucial for turning knowledge about sustainability problems/issues into action” (p. 2) and continue, arguing that, “a commitment speaks back to you, in the sense that you want to do something” (p. 3). This paper is limited to explore teaching in which students can transform the experience of controversial sustainability issues - i. e issues consisting of beliefs and arguments that are beyond judgment and scientific evidence - into active engagement such as civic action. However, student engagement is a complex entity. This paper takes a transactional approach on engagement, which means that engagement is an experience taking place between an individual and his environment’’ (Dewey, LW 13, p. 25). The environment is ‘‘whatever conditions interact with personal needs, desires, purposes, and capacities to create the experience’’ such as toys with which he/she is playing, others with which he/she is talking, or books which one is reading (LW 13, p. 25). Here, experience is defined as the process and result of which a living organism tries to do something to and undergoes by its environment (Dewey, LW 9). Furthermore, the environment involves other-than-humans. Consequently, the teacher is vital in setting the scene when it comes to engaging students in CSI and civic action. However, there is a lack of research on teachers' didactical work how to transform students’ engagement in CSI into civic action. However, in social movements theory engagement is vital and pervasive, which also regards research fields such as student engagement and political participation. Can formal educational settings on student engagement learn from informa settings? Therefore, a transdisciplinary approach will be fruitful to explore student engagement. Following research aim guide the exploration: how can ESE-practice establish student engagement in sustainability issues and its function in developing students’ capability to take civic action to achieve sustainable development? Following research questions guide the exploration: engagement for whom, engagement in what, engagement for what purpose and to what end?

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