Connecting the UN Sustainable Development Goals to Climate Change
How does climate change connect to society throughout the world?
There is no part of our world that is untouched by our changing climate. Rising temperatures have caused changes in our Earth's system with reverberations throughout our political, scientific, social, and economic systems. Even when studying climate change from a scientific perspective, it is important for students to understand how society is connected to science and how they influence each other. One meaningful way for students to access exploring this connection is through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, otherwise known as the SDGs. The SDGs give students a starting point to think about the big global issues of our times and how those are connected to climate change. The open-endedness of activities like these allows students to think both locally and globally as well as learn from other students perspectives. Even something as simple as concluding an activity by asking "How does this connect to one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals?" can spark thoughtful discussion among students that connect to many specific global issues. As the year progresses and students learn more and more about the goals, these discussions continue to grow in their depth and specificity.
The lessons linked below were all designed and delivered in a middle school setting of 7th grade students. However, the open-endedness of the lessons allows for no ceiling with upper grades, and with increased scaffolding, these lessons can also be adapted for younger grades. It is often more helpful to start by picking a class SDG in younger grades and working up to students choosing their own.
This is a country specific look at the affects and opportunities of climate change. In this case, countries were selected based on students' assigned countries for Model United Nations. As shown by the student work below, more variety of countries would paint a clearer picture of the effects of climate change as sub-equatorial countries are not as robustly represented.
This is a more open-ended, student driven group assignment related to areas of study and their relationship to the SDGs due to climate change.
This combination of two lessons walks students through how much fresh, potable water is available in the Earth system as well as all the different forms of water on Earth. It then uses a world water map from National Geographic to highlight water gaps, which is the difference between water demand and availability.
Professional Reflection on the Above Activities:
Climate Change Story Map - This was especially meaningful with the Model UN connection. Students added another layer of understanding to their study of their assigned country, while also seeing specifics about climate change and its connection to all other facets of society. One of the glaring things to work on is the distribution of countries. As you can see from the student work sample, the countries do not geographically represent all of the planet and do not demographically represent a wide variety of populations, especially Africa. This created some difficulty in understanding the connection to Indigenous populations and the relationship between climate change and culture. In the future, it would be good to expand and include more carefully chosen countries so students get a wider variety of impacts.
Climate Symposium - This activity most closely fit with the SDGs as the sections chosen were based on the SDGs themselves. This allowed students to dive deeper into an area. It is also meaningful for students to present to each other as scientists do on specific areas of expertise. As with all group work, of course, there is the element of shared tasks and making sure all 7th graders are being productive members of the group.Â
Water in the World - This was especially impactful as it was done at the same time students were studying access to water in social studies, which in 7th grade is world geography. Students were surprised by the experiential distribution of the water and how much of the world's water is actually accessible and potable. They were also shocked that we have so many communities in our home state who do not have reliable, safe drinking water. Some students had trouble getting information from the National Geographic World Water Map, so more attention as a class to how to interpret the infographic would have helped with that. They also struggled with the ArcGIS Map of Anchorage's water so that would also need more support. I would like to add a service learning aspect to this in the future with students raising awareness and money to help a community with a water gap or other lacking safe access to fresh water.