Category: Inspiring Inquiry

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Inquiry Into SDGs: Clean Water & Sanitation

This is a series of provocations designed to provide resources for students to inquire into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. For more, click here. 

The first challenge in helping students inquire into the need to provide clean water and sanitation is to recognize what a privilege it is to have! These resources are intended to help them consider this global goal and how they might help.

Resource #1: G R A N T E D by Michele Guieu

Resource #2: Why Water by CharityWater

Resource #3: Global Citizen – Water & Sanitation by BRIKK

#Resource #4: Water Stewardship by Nice & Serious & WWF

Resource #5: The Water Princess by Susan Verde, Georgie Badiel & Peter Reynolds

Provocation Questions:

  • How is clean water important to humans?
  • How is sanitation important to humans?
  • Why is clean water scarce for so many people? How does this scarcity impact an individual? A family? A community?
  • What is our responsibility to manage water well?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into SDGs: No Poverty

This is a series of provocations designed to provide resources for students to inquire into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. For more, click here. 

Extreme poverty is defined as a deprivation of basic human needs, such as food, shelter, sanitation, clean water, and education. The Sustainable Development Goal to end extreme poverty by 2013 is within reach–the number has declined by half between 1990 and 2015, and this global goal aims to finish the job. Share the following resources to help students inquire into this goal and to learn ways they can make a difference.

Resource #1: Extreme Poverty: Choices by US AID

Resource #2: United Way Poverty

Resource #3: Poverty, Inc

Resource #6: 5 Ways to Fight Poverty by Outreach International

Resource #5: Living On a Dollar a Day photoseries by Renée Byer. See more from the series at Time.

  • Jestina Koko, 25, with her daughter Satta Quaye, 5. Crippled since the age of three, she depends on her arms to lift and drag herself. She survives by doing laundry for others, selling cookies on the street, and begging in Monrovia, Liberia. Both of them suffer from malaria. She wishes for a wheel chair, a private room to live in and for her daughter to go to school. They sleep in the hallway of a home that has no electric, toilet or running water and own nothing. August 29, 2010. PHOTOGRAPH COPYRIGHT ©RENÉE C. BYER
  • Rudra, 5, and his sister Suhani, 3, search for tea to drink at the Charan slum Settlement in Dharamsala, India, where they live with their family. They survive although two of their siblings recently died of malnutrition.
  • Following the death of his father, Alvaro Kalancha Quispe, 9, helps his family survive by herding. He opens the gate to the stone pen that holds the family’s alpacas and llamas each morning so they can graze throughout the hillsides during the day. He then heads off to school, but must round them up again in the evening in the Akamani mountain range of Bolivia in an area called Caluyo, about an hour from the city of Qutapampa. In this part of the world, the highlands of Bolivia, approximately 13,000 feet above sea level, residents live in homes with no insulation, no electricity, and no beds. Their water comes from streams that run off the snow-covered mountains. Their livelihood lies with their animals, for each animal produces about three pounds of fur each year, and each pound of fur is sold for 18 bolivianos, which amounts to about $2.50 U.S. All in all, this family may earn about $200 of income each year from the herd they watch over. PHOTOS COPYRIGHT ©RENÉE C. BYER

Resource #6: Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting

Provocation Questions:

  • What is poverty?
  • How can we be more aware of extreme poverty in our communities?
  • What is our responsibility to help end extreme poverty?
  • How can we support people living in poverty in a way that promotes human dignity?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into SDGs: Climate Action

This is a series of provocations designed to provide resources for students to inquire into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. For more, click here. 

Today’s provocation centers on the global goal of Climate Action, that is, the need to take “urgent action on climate change and its impacts.” Use the resources below to help students consider what this might mean for them!

Resource #1: HiCamp – A Letter to Congress By Christopher Newman

Resource #2: SciStarter Citizen Science video

See also the Earth Challenge 2020 & video here.

Resource #3: Planet Under Pressure by Moth

Resource #4: Climate Action Plan by Squint/Opera

Resource #5: What Can a Citizen Do? by Dave Eggers

Provocation Questions:

  • What is climate?
  • Why does our climate require action?
  • How does global citizenship connect to climate action?
  • What is our responsibility to take action for our environment?
  • How can one person make a difference?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into SDGs: Life on Land

This is a series of provocations designed to provide resources for students to inquire into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. For more, click here. 

The global goal of Life on Land is all about protecting and restoring ecosystems, forests, and biodiversity. In my experience, many children already tend to be passionate here, to saving endangered species to rainforest conservation, so bridging to the Sustainable Development Goals might be a natural connection.

Resource #1: Wildlife Aid’s ‘Saving Harry’ by Kris Hofmann

Resource #2: Nokia, HK Honey by Kiku Ohe

Resource  #3: Biotop by Jola Bańkowska

Resource #4: Toposcape by Adnaan Jiwa (might be a little advanced for younger students, but a fascinating watch!)

Resource #5: Age of the Farmer by Spencer MacDonald

Resource #6: A Boy & a Jaguar by Alan Rabinowitz & Catia Chien 

Resource #7: The Tree Lady by  H. Joseph Hopkins & Jill McElmurry

Provocation Questions:

  • What is deforestation?
  • What is an ecosystem?
  • What is the connection between deforestation and animal species conservation?
  • Why is every species an important part of an ecosystem?
  • What is our responsibility for sustainable use of trees for ourselves? For our world?

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featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into SDGs: Industry, Innovation, & Infrastructure

This is a series of provocations designed to provide resources for students to inquire into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. For more, click here. 

The Sustainable Development Goal #9 is intended to “build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation.” The resources below are intended to help your students start thinking about what this might look like and how they can be involved!

Resource #1: Our Work by Global Goods Partners

Resource #2: Animanimals: Ant by Filmbilder

Resource #3: Enterprise Sustainability by Bruton STrobe Studios

Resource #4: If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson

Resource #5: The Red Bicycle: An Extraordinary Story of One Ordinary Bicycle by Jude Isabella and Simone Shin

Provocation Questions: 

  • What is infrastructure? How does it impact the way a society functions?
  • What is industry? How does it impact the way a society functions?
  • What is innovation? How does it impact the way a society functions?
  • How does innovation help people come up with ideas for better infrastructure and industry?
  • How can responsible shopping choices help improve the industries in other countries?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry Into SDG’s: Responsible Consumption & Production

This is a series of provocations designed to provide resources for students to inquire into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. For more, click here. 

The concept of responsible consumption and production especially weighs on my mind this time of year as the holiday season approaches. Kath Murdoch recently shared an excellent post by George Monbiot that you may have seen since it was published in 2012. If not, be sure to check it out! One line that stood out to me in particular:

“…very rich people in Vietnam are now sprinkling ground rhino horn on their food or snorting it like cocaine to display their wealth. It’s grotesque, but it scarcely differs from what almost everyone in industrialised nations is doing: trashing the living world through pointless consumption.”

How might sharing this provocation spark more thoughtful consumption & production for our students? Use these resources to find out!

Resource #1: PYP Exhibition Staging from Sam Sherratt’s class: “Keep it simple, clear, and environmentally responsible. “

Resource #2: Lego artwork by Nathan Sawaya (Pop art series & Metamorphosis series)

by Nathan Sawaya

Resource #3: Sustainable Brands 2018 from Nice and Simple

Resource #4: The Most Sustainable Jeans by Parallel Studio

Resource #5: Sustainable Furniture by People for Smarter Cities

Resource #6: The Lorax by Dr. Suess

Provocation Questions:

  • What is production?
  • What is consumption?
  • What makes production or consumption sustainable?
  • What is our responsibility to produce and consume in a sustainable manner?
  • How does sustainable production/consumption compare with unsustainable production/consumption?
  • How does being responsible consumers help us better connect as human beings?
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Inquiry into SDGs: Sustainable Cities & Communities

This is a series of provocations designed to provide resources for students to inquire into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. For more, click here. 

I am astonished by some of the figures associated with this global goal. Right now, 3.5 billion people live in cities, which is half of our global population. By 2050, that figure is expected to reach 6.5 billion, which would be 2/3 of our population. It is clearly a pressing need to consider how we can design our urban spaces in more sustainable ways.

This week’s provocations are meant to help students consider what it means for a city to be sustainable.

Resource #1: Bicycle Rush Hour via The Kid Should See This

Resource #2: What is Public Life? by Gehl Institute

Resource #3: A Taste of Vienna by Film Spektakel

Resource #4: Gentrification by Word of the Day

Resource #5: “The Little House” by Virginia Lee Burton

 

Resource #6: The Promise by Nicola Davies

Provocation Questions: 

  • What makes a city pleasant to live in?
  • What makes a city pleasant to move around in?
  • What do you notice about cities that are pleasant to walk or ride bikes around?
  • What does it mean for something to be be sustainable?
  • What is the connection between a pleasant city and a sustainable one?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto