Guiding Principles for Transformative Education

Why Teach the SDGs?

Why should we teach the SDGs in schools? Hurd & Ormsby (2020) note that in order to prepare students to understand and address current and future global issues, whole-school sustainability approaches will not be sufficient. The authors elaborate that teaching the SDGs creates opportunities for students to develop systems thinking and to translate that thinking into local civic action. Therefore the SDGs add value as an orienting framework for learning by connecting the global to the local, creating learning opportunities to learn and practice skills for civic action locally and advocacy at the global level. Global treaties, IPCC reports, global trade bans to protect marine life, content of the agricultural food summits are all linked to a common framework of the SDGs. Therefore, in order to understand global trends and see how they impact local communities, teaching SDGs becomes crucial in the schools. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Global Citizenship Education (GCE) are  tools to teach the SDGs in schools. UNESCO's Education for Sustainable Development Learning Objectives (2017) helps us to understand the learning outcomes that students should attain using the SDG lens.

How should we teach the SDGs in K-12? Part 1 provides a framework that keeps sustainability and justice at the core. This could be one way of orienting teaching of the SDGs. SDGs need to be tied to the theoretical framework to ensure that the SDGs are not just taught for the sake of increasing knowledge of the SDGs, but also to impact the behavior and social-emotional well-being for individual learners and for the wider society. The four pillars of Sustainable Development offer different entry points through which sustainability and justice issues can be explored and connected to core subjects.

These four pillars of Sustainable Development include:

Implementing the kinds of action-oriented, transformative learning that SDG 4.7 calls for requires more than integration of SDG 4.7 content into curriculum. It requires shifts in the education system, school, and classroom cultures so that they are more in-tune and responsive to community histories, cultures, and needs. It also requires the facilitation of learning opportunities that build learner agency and help connect and address local and global challenges.

UNESCO, 2016 GEM Report: Educating for People and Planet

This section is primarily for educators, education leaders and decision-makers at sub-national, district, school, and classroom levels,and discusses principles and considerations to guide integration of learning on the SDGs through the lens of  SDG4.7 - Global Citizenship Education and Education for Sustainable Development. It provides case study examples of curriculum reform efforts, as well as of curriculum audits and analyses identifying gaps in existing curricula where further integration of the SDGs and aligned areas of learning is needed and identifies opportunities within existing curricula where SDG 4.7 learning can be incorporated. It will further summarize and recommend school- and classroom-based curriculum delivery strategies and present case studies of contextual adaptation for specific community and school scenarios. 

Integrating SDG 4.7 content, skills, and attitudes across core curriculum

SDG 4.7 calls on us to “ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development." Some education systems offer courses related to the knowledge and skill areas named in SDG 4.7 as electives or for advanced students, such as elective courses in environmental sciences or human geography, while others offer extra-curricular programs on SDG 4.7-aligned topics. While these can be great learning opportunities, the best way to ensure that all learners have access to learn and apply SDG 4.7 knowledge, skills, and values is by integrating it across core curriculum. SDG 4.7 focus areas can be viewed as opportunities to enrich and connect existing curriculum by integrating SDG 4.7 concepts into core subject areas in transdisciplinary ways, and helping bring them to life with real-world examples and inquiry. This section offers examples for education decision-makers and curriculum developers of how education systems are approaching this kind of integration.

Reforming and adapting education standards to integrate SDG 4.7-aligned content, attitudes, and skills

A number of education systems at national and state levels have begun the process of reforming their education policy and standards to infuse SDG 4.7 and/or related learning areas, such as climate change and action civics, into curriculum. Such policy-driven approaches are the most effective way to ensure that all schools and teachers are supported to evolve their practice to integrate SDG 4.7 and SDG learning. The following articles and resources offer case study examples of how some countries and states are approaching curriculum reform and adaptation to integrate SDG 4.7-aligned learning standards.

Identifying opportunities in existing curriculum to align SDG 4.7 lessons

In places where existing curriculum is limited in how well it addresses SDG-related issues such as climate change, cultural diversity, and equality, education decision-makers at national, state, and local levels can analyze existing curriculum for opportunities to integrate SDG 4.7 content, attitudes, and skills within existing education standards across grades and subjects. Such curriculum analyses have been conducted in select countries and states by Mission 4.7 partners in order to identify gaps in existing curricula where further integration of the SDGs and aligned areas of learning are needed, as well as identify opportunities within existing curricula where SDG 4.7 learning can be woven in. Findings from select curriculum audits can be found here.

To support integrating SDG 4.7 into existing curriculum, there are a wealth of existing resources that have already been aligned to common subjects, standards, grade levels, and SDGs. The following links show some examples of learning resource collections that have been mapped to standards, and guides for how to make curriculum connections. 


Whole-school, transdisciplinary approaches to SDG 4.7 based in real-world phenomena

Beyond developing curriculum that infuses SDG 4.7 focus areas across subjects, the capacity of learners to unleash their problem-solving potential within their schools and communities will be more fully enabled when all school stakeholders - including school leaders, teachers, school staff, students, families, and community organizations - are engaged in a whole-school approach that helps break down subject area silos to equip learners with knowledge and skills to understand and address complex problems. 

Such an approach requires educators being equipped and empowered to facilitate opportunities for learners to engage with local and global challenges in ways that apply learning using transdisciplinary approaches. Transdisciplinarity goes beyond simply addressing topics in different subjects, as it is driven by student interest in real-life issues and phenomena, with subject area teachers helping to equip learners with specific knowledge and skills to help tackle problems, with the ultimate goal of transcending individual subjects to foster broader understandings. To facilitate transitions to such transdisciplinary, transformative learning opportunities, education systems and school leaders must empower educators with shared planning time and resources. Dedicated time in the school day to facilitate teacher planning and collaboration is key. Below are examples of resources and guidance for transdisciplinary planning and collaboration involving the whole school.

To help illustrate how a whole-school, transdisciplinary approach might work, let’s imagine that at the start of the school year, teachers are encouraged to ask their students what they are interested in learning and what issues they see in their community that they want to tackle. Students identify a problem with pollution in their local waterway, and so this guides district and school leaders and educators to collaborate on developing transdisciplinary units. This might include, in science class, students conducting field tests of water quality and inputting data using their mobile phones, while conducting data analysis in math class, writing persuasive letters describing the problem and potential solutions in language class, and learning about the relevant histories of their locality and exploring ways that policies can be enacted in social studies classes. By helping students explore how the disciplines connect and support each other to understand and address complex problems, students not only build subject-area skills and knowledge, but also develop their critical and systems thinking skills. The below resources present case studies of how schools and non-formal education organizations have integrated project-based, whole-school and community-connected approaches to address the SDGs.


Culturally-responsive curriculum - affirming and promoting students’ diversity of cultures, languages, and ways of knowing 

A key component of SDG 4.7 is acknowledging the important role that cultural diversity and culture’s contributions play in achieving the SDG agenda, yet traditional curriculum and pedagogical practices often serve to uphold hegemonic ways of knowing and engaging in public life. Learners with backgrounds outside of the mainstream too often learn - whether explicitly or implicitly - that their difference is a deficit, propagating learning gaps along racial and economic lines. Funds of Knowledge are defined as “Historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skill essential for household and individual functioning and well-being”(Moll & Amanti, 2005, p. 133). Incorporating learners’ Funds of Knowledge can enable culturally-responsive teaching and can help validate learners’ differing experiences as assets enabling more enriching learning experiences that can promote equity and inclusion in the classroom and help broaden perspectives, empathy, and mutual understanding among diverse groups of learners. The below resources include examples of how education systems are implementing culturally-responsive curriculum, tools for schools and teachers to incorporate learners’ cultural and family knowledge, and case study examples of how educators are promoting appreciation of cultural diversity and culture’s contributions to sustainable development in their classrooms. 


Fostering learner empowerment and agency through SDG 4.7

The essence of SDG 4.7 is about empowering and equipping young learners to be active participants in progressing toward the SDGs. Education must equip learners with knowledge, skills, attitudes, and self-efficacy for civic engagement. In many parts of the world, civic education has been neglected over the past half century as concerns over global competitiveness and security have spurred STEM into the upper echelons of education investment, while increasingly polarized societies struggle to find consensus for what civic education should entail. Civic engagement can be learned across disciplines when learners are facilitated and encouraged to identify issues in their community, develop and implement plants to address them that help build skills in various disciplines, and reflect on their actions and what they learned. The below resources include professional development resources, case studies, and learning resources for facilitating action civics across disciplines to promote learner agency.

Taking a broader view beyond formal education, UNESCO's report "Integrating Action for Climate Empowerment into Nationally Determined Contributions" outlines 6 key areas where countries should focus their action toward empowering citizens to address climate change, including education, training, public awareness, public access to information, public participation, and international cooperation.