Sustainable Development Goals

Our team was given the unique opportunity to actually execute our lesson plan with the 7th grade students at our international school here in Osaka, Japan. This has allowed us the unique experience to gain insight into an actual group of students and their interests. As a whole, our students here have been learning about the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in their Global Studies class and then brings it into the context of different disciplinary lenses. Having the unit revolve around sustainability and will have real-life environmental impacts and ramifications, and having the whole school learn about SDGs together creates an atmosphere for authentic learning and sense of community. The environmental theme brings the learning of our classes to a global stage.

Project Design

The overall design of the project is formed in conjunction with the students here, as they are given the responsibility to co-design the final summative mural that they will make from recycled bottle caps. This is intentionally done so that the unit overall can become more student centered and driven. Teachers will be there for guidance, but students will try to form connections and to draw upon prior knowledge so that students can form deeper understandings and learn authentically. This will help them practice how to make connections in the real world as well. The students will not only be learning course concepts and curricular outcomes, but also to be responsible global citizens.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Sometimes it can be hard to fully conceptualize the full scale of environmental issues that we face. This project allows students to get hands on, and confront the amount of waste that is created in their daily lives, and turn it into a creative art piece to further spread environmental and sustainable awareness. In this sense, students will collaboratively experience how to reuse and recycle while hopefully also coming up with ways on how to reduce waste. Students will do this while drawing on concepts from other disciplines, like Mathematics and Science and English, to complete their final assessment. Because our unit plan was created with the students from our current school, in which English language acquisition is a key component of all subject areas, our lesson plan has a large focus on the inclusion of ELL specific goals.