This text provides a detailed explanation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) created in 2015 and includes graphs, tables, infographics, and colorful images.
Students will learn how the SDGs respond to limitations in previous goals, some improvements that align with the goals, and how close the goals are to being achieved.
This is the eighth section of the World 101 Global Era Issues: Development module, which provides a teacher lesson plan and discussion guide for higher education.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This text stresses the interconnectedness of the Sustainable Development Goals.
As each policy/improvement is mentioned, they picture the many goals that are involved.
It does a great job of explaining how these goals differ from the Millennium Development Goals, so students can avoid confusion and see where the MDGs fell short.
Additional Prerequisites
Students may need the terms degradation, impoverished, developing country, developed country, municipality, and others defined prior to reading the article.
The lesson plan and discussion guide are primarily for classrooms using the entire module. However, question 4 in the discussion guide and part three of the guided notes in the lesson plan pertain to this particular section.
Students should know what the United Nations is and how countries work together to promote the common good.
Differentiation
Students can discuss the tradeoffs that countries experience as they achieve certain goals, such as the environmental tradeoff as a result of China's poverty-reducing measures.
Each student can choose one of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals to further research and produce an informative piece of writing about, including success criteria and current policies contributing to this goal in their own country or country of interest.
Civics students describe how a country might design improvements through policy to contribute to the SDGs.
As inequality, poverty, access to education, and gender equality are all pieces of the SDGs, students may want to research the history of inequality in a country of their choice.
Scientist Notes
This article introduces the idea of Sustainable Development Goals, what they mean, and how the UN, and other countries, are using them to guide their future. These goals are UN goals that will help people across the world live better lives, while still protecting our environment. The article is easy to understand and is a great example of what large organizations are trying to do to combat climate change. The information presented is accurate and this resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Civics
D2.Civ.1.9-12 Distinguish the powers and responsibilities of local, state, tribal, national, and international civic and political institutions.
D2.Civ.12.9-12 Analyze how people use and challenge local, state, national, and international laws to address a variety of public issues.
D2.Civ.13.9-12 Evaluate public policies in terms of intended and unintended outcomes, and related consequences.
D2.Civ.14.9-12 Analyze historical, contemporary, and emerging means of changing societies, promoting the common good, and protecting rights.
D2.Civ.5.9-12 Evaluate citizens' and institutions' effectiveness in addressing social and political problems at the local, state, tribal, national, and/or international level.
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.1.9-12 Analyze how incentives influence choices that may result in policies with a range of costs and benefits for different groups.
D2.Eco.11.9-12 Use economic indicators to analyze the current and future state of the economy.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
