How to use the UN Sustainable Development Goals in the classroom

Today's students will need more than good exam results to succeed in evolving societies and global workplaces. They’ll also need soft skills and qualities like global citizenship, environmental stewardship, digital literacy, and critical and creative thinking. These skills are highly valued by employers, and so it makes sense to look to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

What are the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

Adopted by the United Nations in 2015, the SDGS are 17 objectives to address the world’s biggest problems by 2030. These include poverty, inequality, climate change, and biodiversity loss. 

Bringing macro challenges into micro spaces like classrooms helps students connect global issues with local and individual actions. This empowers them to come up with sustainable, ethical solutions. The process is urgent since only 16% of SDG targets are on track to be achieved by 2030.

There’s no time like the present to start empowering young learners to become future problem-solvers. Let’s take a look at how to do that.

5 ways to teach the Sustainable Development Goals 

Here are five creative ideas for teaching sustainable development goals. These ideas will help learners develop language, awareness and key skills. They also feed into high-impact teaching strategies (HITS). This is because they involve structuring lessons, collaborative learning and metacognitive strategies, among other HITS principles.

1. SDG 4: Education 

This goal is all about inclusive, equitable and quality education and lifelong learning opportunities. To teach it, try this sustainable development goal activity for students: 

Organise a classroom discussion to share thoughts on what high-quality, inclusive and equitable education looks like. Then, discuss why it’s important for personal and societal development.

Next, in pairs or groups, ask students to brainstorm or research barriers to education in different parts of the world. They could even categorise these into economic, political or social barriers. If you want to get more in-depth, students can focus on a specific country, region or group facing challenges and propose solutions. 

Have them present via video or a single-page website to develop digital literacy skills.  

2. SDG 5: Gender equality 

This SDG aims to achieve gender equality and empower women and girls. You can bring it into the classroom like this: 

Introduce key vocabulary around gender equality, like "empowerment," "equity," "discrimination" and "stereotypes." Use matching exercises or word games to reinforce understanding. This helps students articulate more effectively during discussions.

Then, have learners research influential women leaders, activists or movements that contributed to gender equality. This could be in their country or globally. They could create a timeline of significant dates and milestones in the fight for gender equality. Then, present it to the class. 

If you’re teaching teens, you could also analyse advertisements, TV, movies and online media. The aim is to identify gender stereotypes. This promotes digital literacy, critical thinking and gender awareness. To bring maths into it, they can use collected data to calculate percentages or ratios to quantify the prevalence of stereotypes. Then, create graphs or charts to visually represent their findings.  

3. SDG 7: Energy

SDG 7 involves ensuring affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for everyone. This lends itself nicely to STEM activities (science, technology, engineering and maths). Incorporating these activities is crucial to encourage more women and girls to pursue STEM careers. 

Have students perform an energy audit of their school or home. The idea is to identify areas where energy consumption could be reduced. They should also propose ways to improve energy efficiency. For example, switching to LED lighting or installing insulation. 

After, learners work in groups to research, design and build simple models of renewable energy sources. For example, making a wind turbine or a water mill from everyday materials. These hands-on activities teach the principles of renewable energy, design and engineering. 

Another fun idea is to create a solar oven and cook simple items. Learners can measure the temperature to evaluate the oven's effectiveness. Experiential learning like this often enables greater personalisation and engagement than traditional methods. 

4. SDG 12: Sustainable production and consumption & SDG 13: Climate change 

Since these goals feed into each other, you can combine them and put climate change at the heart of education. 

Have students keep a record of their daily activities over a period of time. Then, use a carbon footprint calculator to work out how much CO2 they’re responsible for. Discuss the results and  how they could improve them through sustainable life choices. 

Next, run a life cycle analysis project. Here, students analyse the life cycle of a common product, like a smartphone or item of clothing. They should research the environmental impact at each stage, from production to disposal. This will help them understand the implications of their consumption, promoting more sustainable decision-making. 

To get more creative, have them design with a more sustainable alternative. For example, by creating a prototype or marketing plan and presenting it to the class. 

Since eco-anxiety is real, read how to talk to your students about climate change before starting these activities. 

5. SDG 14: Oceans & SDG 15: Land

These SDGs are all about conservation and sustainable use of the land and seas. To bring them into the classroom, first teach the necessary vocabulary. Then encourage discussions about sustainable land and ocean use, species extinction and its implications. 

Afterwards, have students research a species or natural habitat under threat and create a leaflet, poster or media campaign to protect it. They should make their case clearly, effectively and persuasively. For example, by using concrete examples and supporting evidence. Alternatively, they could write newspaper articles or create a video news report. 

Teach the Sustainable Development Goals to empower the next generation  

Incorporating the Sustainable Development Goals into classroom activities provides students with valuable insights into global challenges. It also fosters the digital, soft, creative and STEM skills that are increasingly in demand from employers. 

Use our five ideas for classroom activities focused on specific SDGs to enhance learners skills and empower them to become the problem solvers of the future, contributing to a fairer, more sustainable world (where they are also more successful!).

Discover more creative ways to teach the skills of the future.