Education for sustainable development and education for the environment as a component part of sustainable development, includes mutually connected environmental, economic and social questions. However, among all possible definitions of sustainable development an integrated definition of sustainable development is possible, namely as a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The field of sustainable development within school policies gained its significance especially due to United Nations that announced the period from 2005 to 2014 the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, for which UNESCO was the lead agency. Within the last decade the presence of education for sustainable development became an important criterion in the majority of member states of the European Union for the assesssment of quality of the educational system. There are different ways of including education for sustainable development into the school system (as a subject, subject as part of curriculum or as an intersubject) and disadvantages, as there is a lack of suitable staff. The incorporation of didactic contents and aims into the didactic process largely depends upon an appropriate advanced training of teachers within the framework of individual subject, upon assuring required circumstances (teaching aids, equipment, purposely ensured time) and upon evaluation. Education for sustainable development is in member states of EU on different levels of progress. The paper presents methods of teaching and learning in Slovene primary schools on the field of sustainable development. The essential discussion is the identification of the main fields on which sustainable development is taught and the methods that are used for achieving this objective. The objective of the Strategy UNECE is to incorporate key themes of sustainable development in all education systems. These themes include a wide range of issues: poverty alleviation, peace, ethics, democracy, justice, security, human rights, health, social equity, cultural diversity, economy, environmental protection, natural resource management.

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