Global Goals: Bringing the world into your classroom
Global Goals: Bringing the world into your classroom
“It is essential that learners have access to education, evidenced information, and ‘real’ news that enable them to engage with, consider, and understand global issues.”* How do we as educators do that? Perhaps it's the Sustainable Development Goals that can provide the framework. Never heard of the SDGs? What about the Global Goals? More importantly, do your students know what they are, and how they can use them to begin to make an impact.
What are the SDGs?
The SDGs are a set of goals and targets aimed at making the world a better place. Citizens around the world face significant social, economic, environmental, and political challenges at both a local and a global level. In 2015, in order to address many of these issues, all the member states of the United Nations (UN) committed to these 17 goals, which, if achieved, would make the world’s environments, economies and societies significantly better by the year 2030.
Even though it is our governments at various levels that will take on the heavy responsibility of reaching the targets of the goals, as educators we can also play a role. In schools, we can increase the awareness of the 17 goals and guide our students' work toward becoming agents of change.
Some of the ambitious aims of the SDGs include: ending poverty and hunger, achieving gender equality, improving the quality of education for all children, and taking action to protect the climate and environment. These goals apply to everyone, whether they be young or old, living in a developed country or a rural village.
Why are the SDGs relevant for schools?
The SDGs are a helpful tool for enhancing the existing curriculum and engaging the whole school community; teachers, students, administrators, and even parents. There is also the opportunity to engage and collaborate with community agencies, groups, and organizations while considering the relationship between the local and global. Or as I like to borrow the popular phrase of ‘think globally, act locally’.
Benefits to students
• Supports the acquisition of many of the 21st skills and competences, such as problem-solving, communication, and collaboration.
• Motivates and enhances learning across various curriculum disciplines as they are relevant to the real world.
• Empowers learners to make sense of the diverse world and local communities in which they live; and to participate in and have a say in decisions that affect them.
• Deepens understanding of social science, science, and mathematical concepts by applying them to real-life data.
• Develops critical thinking and empowers learners to challenge information that can be often found online and in the media
• Engage students with the human stories behind each of the SDGs to combat the deficit stereotypes, statistics, and images that are usually portrayed.
• Support students as change-makers to address global challenges and develop a sense of empathy for others.
Part 2 - Linking SDGs to curriculum lessons
*The Sustainable Development Goals: A Guide for Teachers - 2019
Source: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
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