The project works with educators to increase the engagement of students and young people within their communities, whilst strengthening networks among schools, organisations and local authorities. With a particular focus on migration and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs/’Global Goals’), it invites young people to reflect and actively participate in ‘starting the change’ and supporting Sustainable Development.
At their recent Global Citizenship conference, Anne told us more:
Q: How did you get involved with the Start the Change Project?
I first got involved with the Highland One World group when I was a probationary teacher. And it was through that, that I heard about the Start the Change project. I was extremely fortunate to be able to travel to Malta as part of this and meet colleagues from across Europe who were basically trying to do the same thing as I was; to incorporate the SDGs into classroom teaching and to understand more about human migration.
Q: Why is it important that young people and educators learn about migration?
I think it’s the fact that it is a global issue and none of us are untouched by it. It's not simply about immigration or migrants coming to ‘our’ country. It's about a much, much wider picture of how the world works; the interconnectedness, the way that trade works, and the need for Human Rights across the world. So there are so many different angles that you can come at this from and different ways to teach it.
Q: Are the SDGs useful when exploring these issues?
The SDGs have been extremely useful in our school in helping to teach about issues such as human migration, climate change and sustainability. Part of our School Improvement Plan is to look at Learning for Sustainability and the SDGs provide a framework to be able to look at these issues and bring them into the classroom in quite an easy and understandable way.
Q: Will looking at the SDGs/Global Goals give teachers even more work to do?
I think that if you look at the priorities for Education in Scotland, it's really easy to see how the SDGs fit into that. The Global Goals really are an integral part of what we do, and the way that we teach and are connected as well to our Standards for Professional Recognition and so on. So it is all part of the same thing - it's not an additional extra.
I think that for teachers who really engaged with the SDGs in our school, it's actually been a very useful way, a visual straightforward way, to bring these different goals into the classroom and tie-up lots of different things that have been kind of swimming around and pull them all together in quite a sensible way.
Q: How have staff used the SDGs in their lessons?
Different teachers have taken different approaches. So, for example, our Physics teacher has been looking into renewable energy and thinking about sustainability in that sense; he has adapted his classroom materials and linked them specifically to the SDGs. And for him as well, I think it's been a useful kind of way of refreshing aspects of the Curriculum.
We've also had our Home Economics teacher doing a street food project and linking the Health and Well-being and Hunger SDGs into that, and that's been very useful as well. There's actually heaps of examples as there's been lots of teachers involved, but those are just a couple.
You can watch Anne’s interview right here on the HOW YouTube channel.
