1.1 Sustainability and me

Note: This unit is designed for use with secondary school students, as well as student teachers and teachers. The unit is framed by questions which encourage reflection and sharing of experience.

Learning objectives

At the end of this unit, learners are able to:

• Articulate personal values
• Consider how values differ between individuals and communities and vary over time
• Define the term 'sustainability', personally and in relation to international discourse
• Discuss the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in general and with some specific examples of goals and targets
• Describe sustainability values, and what these might look like in practice, and possible tensions between them
• Apply systems thinking to explore a sustainability issue, causes and impacts, at local and/or global level
• Envision alternative sustainable futures by imagining and developing alternative scenarios
• Identify the steps needed to achieve a preferred sustainable future.
• Plan, do, record and monitor actions for sustainability

Professional learning questions for teachers during synchronous webinars.

Previous experience with this topic

• Have you introduced the idea of sustainablity, or the SDGs with learners previously? Why or why not?
  
• What subject or school activity was it connected to? What was the aim and/or were the learning objectives?
  
• What resources did you find helpful?
• What went well or was challenging?
• What would you do differently another time and why?

• How relevant are the learning objectives for your learners?
• How appropriate were the activities and resources for the learning objectives and for your learners?
• How would you add to, adapt, or extend this unit?
• How would you assess students for this unit?