Sustainable Development Goals
Engage, Educate and Empower
This is a Call to Action for every person who cares about the future of planet Earth....your planet. Each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) offers an opportunity for you to demonstrate your learner agency.
Choose one or more SDGs to learn and understand. Then decide how you will take action: personally, at your school, in your community or beyond to help meet the SDG 2030 goal. By embracing one or more SDG and taking action you will join the swelling ranks of people who are helping to make a difference for the future of life on Earth....your future.
Message from Professor Stephen Hawking
"To save the world we need everyone to tell everyone" A very important message from Professor Stephen Hawking about the #GlobalGoals
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
Our goal as agentic individuals should be to learn about the Sustainable Development Goals, to teach them to others and to take action wherever you live.
On 25th September 2015, leaders from 193 member states of the United Nations, met to discuss the world’s problems and decide on a plan to tackle them. They named this plan the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) (commonly known as the Global Goals).
The three big aims of the Global Goals are that we fight inequality and injustice, end extreme poverty and tackle climate change.
The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022
The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 provides a global overview of progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It tracks the global and regional progress towards the 17 Goals with in-depth analyses of selected indicators for each Goal.
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The Report highlights the severity and magnitude of the challenges before us. The confluence of crises, dominated by COVID-19, climate change, and conflicts, are creating spin-off impacts on food and nutrition, health, education, the environment, and peace and security, and affecting all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Report details the reversal of years of progress in eradicating poverty and hunger, improving health and education, providing basic services, and much more. It also points out areas that need urgent action in order to rescue the SDGs and deliver meaningful progress for people and the planet by 2030.
Source: United Nations
A future for the World's Children? A WHO–UNICEF–Lancet Commission Report
Despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over recent decades, today’s children face an uncertain future. Climate change, ecological degradation, migrating populations, conflict, pervasive inequalities, and predatory commercial practices threaten the health and future of children in every country. In 2015, the world’s countries agreed on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), yet nearly 5 years later, few countries have recorded much progress towards achieving them.
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The Lancet Commission presents the case for placing children, aged 0–18 years, at the centre of the SDGs: at the heart of the concept of sustainability and our shared human endeavour. Governments must harness coalitions across sectors to overcome ecological and commercial pressures to ensure children receive their rights and entitlements now and a liveable planet in the years to come.
February 2020
Source: ReseachGate Website
A Roadmap For Young Changemakers
Activism is a tough job, especially for young people yearning for immediate change -- something climate activist Melati Wijsen has learned over ten years of pushing for environmental protection, starting at age 12 in her home on the island of Bali, Indonesia. How can young changemakers acquire the skills they need and keep from burning out? Wijsen offers three pieces of advice for anybody seeking to make lasting, sustainable progress.
SDG Resources
Description
World’s Largest Lesson introduces the Sustainable Development Goals to children and young people everywhere and unites them in action.
Also see: Hands-On Learning and the SDGs | Edutopia | July 3, 2023 | A look at a few ways to incorporate the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals across the curriculum.
SDG Picture Book List/Club
Every month, the SDG Book Club uses books as a tool to encourage children ages 6-12 to interact with the principles of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through a curated reading list of books from around the world related to each of the 17 SDGs in all six official UN languages—Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.
Be a Fact-ivist!
Join over 100,000 student Fact-ivists since 2022!
Students will learn about data, select inspiring points, visualize them, and share in a global digital gallery.
This initiative empowers students to become 'fact-ivists,' using information for change. Teaching data skills fosters crucial literacy for achieving the Global Goals and navigating the modern world effectively.
Discovering the principles of sustainable development from a young age is pivotal.
The resources provided on this UN website cater to both adults and young individuals, offering an enjoyable and interactive approach to understanding the Sustainable Development Goals and how each of us can contribute to their attainment.
Worldwise Learning: A Teacher′s Guide to Shaping a Just, Sustainable Future
By: Carla Marschall & Elizabeth O. Crawford Create inclusive, democratic classrooms that prepare knowledgeable, compassionate, and engaged global citizens. Today’s global challenges―climate change, food and water insecurity, social and economic inequality, and a global pandemic―demand that educators prepare students to become compassionate, critical thinkers who can explore alternative futures. Their own, others’, and the planet’s well-being depend on it.
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13 : 978-1071835944 / Corwin; 1st edition (October 7, 2021) / 360 pages
Worldwise Learning presents a “Pedagogy for People, Planet, and Prosperity” that supports K-8 educators in nurturing “Worldwise Learners”: students who both deeply understand and purposefully act when learning about global challenges. Coupling theory with practice, this book builds educators’ understanding of how curriculum and meaningful interdisciplinary learning can be organized around local, global, and intercultural issues, and provides a detailed framework for making those issues come alive in the classroom. Richly illustrated, each innovative chapter asserts a transformational approach to teaching and learning following an original three-part inquiry cycle, and includes:
Practical classroom strategies to implement Worldwise Learning at the lesson level, along with tips for scaffolding students’ thinking.
Images of student work and vignettes of learning experiences that help educators visualize authentic Worldwise Learning moments.
Stories that spotlight Worldwise Learning in action from diverse student, teacher, and organization perspectives.
An exemplar unit plan that illustrates how the planning process links to and can support teaching and learning about global challenges.
QR codes that link to additional lesson and unit plans, educational resources, videos of strategies, and interviews with educators and thought leaders on a companion website, where teachers can discuss topics and share ideas with each other.
Worldwise Learning turns students into local and global citizens who feel genuine concern for the world around them, living their learning with intention and purpose. The time is now.
Be a Change Maker: Paisley's Pals
Everyone can be a Change Maker. To get started try out this Lesson Plan: Imagine If....Through group discussion and creative thinking, students will get involved in the Global Goals for Sustainable Development by inventing, innovating and campaigning.
170 SGD Daily Actions
Go Goals! SDG Board Game
Here’s a fun way to introduce your students to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The Sustainable Development Goals website hosts a board game called “GO GOALS!”. The purpose of the game is to help children understand the Sustainable Development Goals, how they impact their lives and what they can do every day to help and achieve the 17 goals by 2030.
Comics Uniting Nations
Comics Uniting Nations is a partnership between PCI Media and UNICEF, in collaboration with The World’s Largest Lesson and Reading with Pictures, to make the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals accessible to the citizens of the world through comics.
This series leverages the universal visual language and transformative power of comics to educate people in every corner of the globe about the SDGs and empower them to create positive and lasting change in their own communities and worldwide. Check them out!
Ten Love Letters to the Earth
In honor of Thich Nhat Hanh's passing, Emergence Magazine, published Thich Nhat Hanh’s Ten Love Letters to the Earth. These heartfelt letters are an invitation to engage in intimate conversation with our Earth. He writes, “Dear Mother Earth, I bow my head before you as I look deeply and recognize that you are present in me and that I’m a part of you.”
Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and Zen master, died on January 22, 2022, in the Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, Vietnam—the place where he was ordained nearly eighty years ago as a teenager. An author of over 130 books, including many children’s books, Nhat Hanh was dedicated to mindfulness, nonviolence, and the stewardship of our planet. When he was asked what we need to do to save our world, he replied, “What we most need to do is to hear within us the sound of the earth crying.”
Combating Global Misconceptions
Most people, including teachers, have severe misconceptions about the world they live in. When looking at the complexity of sustainable development, a fact-based worldview is essential. Do you unknowingly communicate misconceptions about the world they live into your students? Let's find out! Gapminder, an independent educational non-profit organization fighting global misconceptions has developed an ignorance survey that you and your students can participate in. Take the short test now. See questions and results from Gapminder test 2017. After you take the test view the two videos below.
Here are more interactive Gapminder tools to help combat global misconceptions that you can use with your students.
To learn about standards of living base don income around the world watch these videos: What is Dollar Street and How it Can be Used in the Classroom and a General Overview of Dollar Street and then check out the Dollar Street website.
EcoWatch Website
(EcoWatch is a community of experts publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions for a healthier planet and life.)EcoWatch is a long-time leader in environmental news. Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, today it is a digital platform still dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions. The goal of EcoWatch is to empower readers to make informed, environmentally-conscious decisions that support a sustainable future for everyone.
Sections
How not to be ignorant about the world | Hans and Ola Rosling
The Terrible Results from the Misconception Study 2017
Change Starts with You!
End extreme poverty. Fight inequality and injustice. Fix climate change. Whoa. The Sustainable Development Goals are important, world-changing objectives that will require cooperation among governments, international organizations and world leaders. It seems impossible that the average person can make an impact. Should you just give up?
No! Change starts with you. Seriously. Every human on earth—even the most indifferent, laziest person among us—is part of the solution. Fortunately, there are some super easy things we can adopt into our routines that, if we all do it, will make a big difference.
Have a look at just a few of the many things you can do to make an impact!
Click HERE for a PDF download of some of the actions.
Doughnut Economic Model for the 21st Century
They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here’s the state of humanity in a single image. It’s the “Doughnut” of social and planetary boundaries and it could just turn out to be the compass we need for creating a safe and just 21st century.
The hole at the Doughnut’s centre reveals the proportion of people worldwide falling short on life’s essentials, such as food, water, healthcare and political freedom of expression – and a big part of humanity’s challenge is to get everyone out of that hole. At the same time, however, we cannot afford to be overshooting the Doughnut’s outer crust if we are to safeguard Earth’s life-giving systems, such as a stable climate, healthy oceans and a protective ozone layer, on which all our wellbeing fundamentally depends. [Imagine if each school/district developed a modified version of the Doughnut Model to guide school-based decisions.]
Read more here.
Doughnut Economics: Changing Economics for a Changing Planet
Videos That Explain the Doughnut Economy
Click/Tap to ViewDoughnut Economics Action Lab | Contains a variety of videos
Downscaling the Doughnut to the City | Jul 19, 2020 | Run Time: 11:21
Doughnut Economics - Lecture by economist Kate Raworth | Jun 19, 2018 | Run Time: 1:09:37
Why it's time for 'Doughnut Economics' | Kate Raworth | TEDxAthens | Dec 16, 2014 \ Run Time: 16:52
Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth | Jan 9, 2013 | Run Time 17:37
What Does it Mean to be a Citizen of the World?
Hugh Evans started a movement that mobilizes "global citizens," people who self-identify first and foremost not as members of a state, nation or tribe but as members of the human race. In this uplifting and personal talk, learn more about how this new understanding of our place in the world is galvanizing people to take action in the fights against extreme poverty, climate change, gender inequality and more. "These are ultimately global issues," Evans says, "and they can ultimately only be solved by global citizens demanding global solutions from their leaders."
How long will I live?
For most of history, reaching 40 was considered fortunate. Only in the last 200 years have we experienced the luxury of longer lives, with our generation aiming to double the historical average lifespan.
Watch this TED Talk about why Wolfgang Fengler created a website that helps people understand their position among 8 billion people, anticipate milestones, and consider factors like shared birthdays and life expectancy. Check out the website for free to find out your life expectancy and more.
