Geography

• Read the lesson plans related to geographic skills, physical and regional geography from Canadian Geographic Education. This organization believes that geographically literate students are better prepared to face global challenges and have the skills necessary to become effective change agents.

• Read the lesson called ‘Challenging Common Conceptions: Seeing the Bigger Picture’ related to SDGs #9, #11 and #12 from the World’s Largest Lesson and the Ellen Macarthur Foundation.

• Read the Child Brides: Stolen Lives lesson plan from the United States Public Broadcasting System (PBS) series NOW. It provides a startling insight into the issue of child brides in many developing countries. The production team travelled to Niger, India and Guatemala to report on a global custom that devastates lives and keeps communities from prospering.

• Read the Forced to Flee lesson plan. The learning objective is to transform thinking and inspire action around conflict, migration, and refugees.

• Visit the Foundation for Environmental Education for award winning Biodiversity Lesson Plans from teachers around the world. You can also view the LEAF lesson plans (Learning About Forests) and read about best practices from the LEAF Network.

• Read Geomedia by Michael John Long. Three chapters form Part 3 of the guide Engaging STEM: A Guide to Interactive Resources. The author provides practical OER resources such as interactive maps, sample activities, guiding questions and teaching guides on how to use geomedia projects in the classroom.

• View the Great Big Lesson for Climate and Nature. The lesson connects goals #11, #12, #13 and #15. View the lesson resource pack.

• Review the Hungry for Food Security – The East African Experience lesson. It introduces students to the issue of food insecurity with an emphasis on East Africa. It has statistics, examples and case studies. Students will also learn the factors impacting food insecurity and will be provided with an overview of some grassroots approaches to enhancing food security in rural African communities. 

• View Resources and Tools for Geography that infuse SDGs #2, #13, #14 and #15 into videos, e-learning courses, lessons, readings, visualizations, modules and laboratory activities. Topics include food security, glaciers, glacial retreat and glacial melting, sea level rise, coastal floods, droughts, forest fires, climate refugees and environmental migration, agro-ecosystems, food production and crop yields, climate resilient agriculture, water resources and water security, climate change and cities and urban heat islands.

• Visit the SDG Academy Library for free, open educational resources. Content can be searched by language, SDG, series and subject.

• Visit SDGs Today to view lessons and learn about GIS for the discovery and exploration of mapping, GIS operations and other ArcGIS capabilities.

• Visit the Wakelet SDG page for lesson plans, links, videos, student challenges, activities, infographics and tasks for all of the 17 SDGs.

Instructor Experiential Education Example

Michael J. Long, MES, LLM

Contract Faculty, LAS and SHTM, George Brown College

Faculty Advisor, Sustainability Squad

George Brown College
Programming Team, 

Planet in Focus Int’l Environmental Film Festival

Across my courses, I teach about the three pillars of sustainability — Environmental, Economic-Political, and Socio-Cultural.

In an effort to explore the intersections of sustainability and culture, I took my students in the General Arts and Science (GAS) program, on a field trip to the Bata Shoe Museum, from which I lectured and we toured the ‘Future Now: Virtual Sneakers to Cutting Edge Kicks‘ exhibit.

The ‘Future Now’ exhibit focuses on how innovation in technology, materials, and ideas in sneaker design are now moving the industry and culture of footwear. The exhibit explores how, for example, mushroom-based leather and reclaimed ocean plastic are supporting the push toward sustainability.

This field trip provided an opportunity for experiential education, through an esteemed arts and culture space in the city, and from which the students were able to interact with the content of the learning materials being discussed in class, and to explore the inclusion of sustainability in anything/everything they do moving forward into their future studies and careers.

In the lecture, learning materials, and museum field trip, we also specifically discussed many of the UN SDGs that are applicable to the footwear industry, from good health and well-being through reducing the chemicals, dyes and other harmful products used in shoe manufacturing (target 3.9) to the energy used to power the factories and transportation used to produce and move footwear around the world (target 7.2). Notable among the SDGs is, of course, Goal 12 Responsible Consumption and Production, and the need to reduce waste generation by reconsidering the entire life-cycle of sneakers (target 12.5), and encouraging sneaker manufacturers to adopt aggressive sustainability practices (12.6).