SDG 4.7 Across Curriculum & Education Spaces
Requirements
- Have a passion for sustainable development, climate action, and environmental justice
Description
Welcome to our course “SDG 4.7 across curriculum and education spaces”. This course aims to provide a framework and roadmap for how education can help drive achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, a sweeping set of global goals agreed to by all United Nations member countries in 2015, with a deadline of being achieved by 2030.
Sustainable Development Goal 4 focuses on education, and challenges us to “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Within this broad goal, target 4.7 calls on us to “ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including 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”.
This course is focused specifically on helping education stakeholders, and especially teachers, better understand how you can help achieve target 4.7 for a sustainable future. We take the SDG 4.7 framework and its vision to see how educators from K-12 and beyond can operationalize it through curriculum design, lesson planning, community connection, and monitoring to incorporate the essence of SDG4.7 and ESD.
To build this course, we sought the insight and expertise of a multitude of important voices in our community, including teachers, youth activists, community educators, think tanks, researchers, school board members and others who are passionate about ESD and have been shaping the thinking around SDG 4.7. The most effective use of this course is to take essential ideas and core concepts and try to use the framework and tools the course offers for curriculum design, lesson planning, and advocacy.
Many of the ideas discussed here are transformative and help to flip our thinking about core competencies that children should expect to achieve by the end of their formal schooling experience. We especially focus on Climate Change Education, Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development with a keen eye towards preparing our children for a more sustainable and regenerative future. We hope this course gives you ideas and inspiration to make SDG 4.7 a reality in your classrooms and communities.
Who this course is for:
- Teachers
- Non-formal educators
- Education policymakers
- Education administrators
- Climate activists
- Students
Instructors
For over 10 years, Haein has worked on the implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation and content development of projects in Myanmar, India, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The aim of these projects, mainly focusing on literacy, digital literacy, job readiness, life skills, and environmental activism, is to build sustainable and resilient communities. At the Earth Institute, she develops and curates curriculum, guides and educational contents for youth and adults on education for sustainable development. Programs include merging science knowledge with eco activism as well as partnering with youth organizations for community-based learning models. She received her Master of Arts in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University.
Dr. Radhika Iyengar is Director of Education and Research Scholar at the Center for Sustainable Development of Columbia University’s Earth Institute. She leads the Education for Sustainable Development initiatives as a practitioner, researcher, teacher and a manager. Her research interests consist of conducting evaluations of educational programs and international educational development. In addition to directing education initiatives at the Center and fieldwork in over 10 countries, she contributes to the scientific community focusing on international educational development with articles published in reputed journals and reports that are used by both domestic and international stakeholders. She received a distinction from Teachers College, Columbia University on her Ph.D. dissertation and has received her Master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India.
Tara is an education specialist with over ten years of experience managing education research and implementation teams from diverse education settings globally. Currently, Tara is leading a social emotional learning (SEL) initiative with over 200 schools in Northeast Nigeria to promote psychosocial well-being in teachers and students. Since joining Columbia University’s Earth Institute in 2012, Tara has managed action research studies in India, Kenya and Uganda to identify best practices to integrating technology tools in rural, resource-poor classrooms. Tara managed the Connect to Learn initiative’s girls’ scholarship program that has helped enroll over 1,300 girls across ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Myanmar. She has also helped develop new vocational and life skills programs in Ghana and Rwanda aimed at supporting marginalized young women in building eco-friendly livelihoods beyond secondary school.
Prior to joining the Earth Institute, Tara worked as a community organizer working with youth organizations on college campuses in California to push for policy change in areas including environment and climate change, affordable higher education, and K-12 arts education.