C12: Agency Can Go Deeper with the SDGs

by Lu Gerlach

​The UN created 17 sustainable development goals as a blueprint for creating self-reliant systems by 2030.  These goals can be used in learning to identify underlying factors for so many social, economic, and political issues being faced in the world.  The SDGs can be found here. ​

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Over the past two years, I’ve heard a lot about agency.  We did it inherently, but there was no label to define it.  As you read about agency, most blogs and articles will break apart the three components (voice, choice, and ownership) apart, rather than find a way to use them together.  In this episode, we are going to attempt to bring them together while trying to research deeper using the UN Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs.

​Our task is to use the SDGs to bring about more agency and depth of understanding when researching. ​

Voice

​Consider a topic that you are studying in social studies and science that your students want to explore deeper.  Allow your students to brainstorm and choose their topics. In this instance, GROUP A has decided to explore the impact that location has on access to natural resources. 

Choice

​Allow students to choose an SDG to be their lens in researching their topic deeper.  Expanding upon our topic, GROUP A will explore the impact of location on access to natural resources through the lens of zero poverty.

Ownership

The students will have ownership of the learning process and product.  They will receive instruction and modeling on various methods and will self-select from a given process and product. 

GROUP A has decided to explore the top three countries that have the lowest poverty rate: Turkmenistan (1), Taiwan (2), and Kazakhstan (3) compared to the United States (45) according to the CIA World Factbook as of January 1, 2019.  The guiding questions for this research will include: 

Natural Resources
What natural resources are available? 
How are resources being conserved and reused? 
What happens to all the waste?

Poverty
How is poverty defined in these countries?
How have these countries kept the poverty rate so low? 
Why is the US poverty rate so high? 

Natural Resources and Poverty
How has access to resources created poverty?
How can natural resources be accessed equitably?
How might poverty determine opportunities? 

Process and product:  Write a letter or email to an expert and ask their questions.  Possible experts may include:  Professor Angus Deaton, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in Economics in 2015

At this time, you make yourself think that I’m crazy or too ambitious.  This is how the innovators and entrepreneurs of tomorrow think and solve their problems.  They research their topic, ask questions, and consult experts.  You can’t get a better answer than from a Nobel Peace Prize winner.  Dream big!

There is a high probability that GROUP A will not receive a response to their letter.  More important than receiving the answer is asking the question.  This is what it means when we say, it’s the process not the product that matters most.  
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I know that we went from zero to 60 in a few minutes, but this is what agency looks like.  It’s dynamic, rich, research worthy, and requires a depth of thought.  Your students deserve this opportunity to study their passion at this level.  Will you have courage to let them?