Students who Campaign for the Global Goals

On 28 June, a High-Level Event on Education will be convened in partnership with key SDG 4 stakeholders to drive a new push for inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all. Sustainable Development Goal 4, education, is at the heart of the UN’s 2030 Agenda and essential for the success of all Sustainable Development Goals."
— General Assembly of the United Nations
http://www.un.org/pga/71/event-latest/high-level-event-on-education/

By Fran Siracusa
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     As we examine Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education, the first target is access to any form of both primary and secondary education, including books, classrooms and teachers. Second, quality education must be stressed, as well as eliminating gender disparities and equal access for vulnerable peoples. UN Ambassador Dessima Williams from Grenada expressed that in global education, “there is inequality remaining still,” and be it through a foundation, a global project, or 21st century innovations, students ought to understand “the concept of solidarity and connectedness with each other.” To bring this message to students and educators is imperative; students and other global education stakeholders need to see the relevance of connection, and be enabled to work with others, while promoting and experiencing intercultural understanding. All students worldwide ought to be asked to impact the world through social good by means of campaigns or innovations, in their educational spheres. As Unicef articulates, in order to realize the Global Goals by the year 2030, “everyone, however young they are, needs to take part. So join our movement, teach young people about the Goals and encourage them to become the generation that changed the world.”
     For those of you educators who would like to help champion the Global Goals, a great place to start is a simple introduction of the SDGs to the students in your classroom. Ask the students to draw a connection between the Global Goals and their personal lives. Invite the students to create a personal campaign to help meet at least one of the Global Goals through digital artifact creation.
     In collaboration between myself, Nic Clayton and Amy Rosenstein, a project and lesson plan concept was created to easily introduce the Global Goals, and also to model the digital campaign. See our lesson and “Model Sways” for project instructions as well as student examples. We hope they can serve the global educator community as starting points, prompts, guides, models and more. Our lesson is published here in the Microsoft Educator Community lesson plans collection: https://education.microsoft.com/Story/Lesson?token=vrlb4 Amy also created another similar lesson, which includes a Skype Collaboration: https://education.microsoft.com/Story/SkypeCollaboration?token=Yxkm9  Please view both lessons and share with colleagues! Don’t forget to share on social media using our hashtag: #TeachSDGs
     Finally, to learn more about the Global Goals within Microsoft materials, please refer to: https://education.microsoft.com/courses-and-resources/courses/sdg 
​     Again, please join us in our initiative to #TeachSDGs! 

Fran Siracusa, co-founder of Calliope Global and Executive Team member of the Global Goals Educator Task Force, supports educational organizations in meeting the diverse needs of today’s students who will be well-equipped players in the global and creative workforce of the future. Her passions are student-centered learning, global projects, World Language study, sustainable development and social good; she creates unique opportunities for teachers and students to develop a culture of innovation through the incorporation of digital technologies and sustainable global partnerships.
Twitter: @ProfeEdTech
Blog: http://www.calliopeglobal.com/shared-stories   

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