Through Climate Action Schools, we would like you to join with the rest of the world in working towards achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and we know that young people in Scottish schools can help this happen!

What are the Sustainable Development Goals?

The Sustainable Development Goals are a set of global priorities for ensuring that economic, environmental, social and cultural wellbeing is achieved for everyone around the world. They are ambitious goals for governments across the world to achieve, but there is a lot we can do at school and at home to support them.

Who decided on the goals?

In 2000 the UN agreed eight Millennium Development Goals with the aim to work towards tackling issues of the time – extreme poverty, education, gender equality, child mortality, maternal health, AIDS /HIV and other diseases, environmental issues and global partnerships. Some of the goals were met, like to halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day, but to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger is far from being achieved - 800 million people still live in extreme poverty! Therefore, new goals were developed. In 2015, after consulting millions of people and organisations across the world, the final decision about what the goals would be was made by the United Nations.

Why are the goals important?

The goals aim to end poverty, protect the planet and try to make sure that everyone around the world is living comfortably.  All very important and worthwhile goals to work towards! Each goal has specific targets for governments to achieve over the next 14 years. In schools, we can help to support the meeting of these targets.

How can you play your part in achieving these goals?

In your school we know you already do lots of excellent work to make the world clean, green and more sustainable! We are going to ask you to make links between your Climate Action Schools projects and one of the Sustainable Development Goals so you will be able to record, monitor and evaluate your progress in helping achieve these goals.

What shall we do now?

Explore the Sustainable Development Goals by clicking on the icons below. You will find lots of additional information about each goal, along with possible learning activities, curricular links and additional resources. Decide which goal most suits the work you will be doing in your school and think about how your work locally links to what is being done globally. 

You can find out how our work across Keep Scotland Beautiful contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Resources From Other Organisations

Confucius Institute for Scotland's Schools - Linking Mandarin and the Goals

Resources that enable teachers and learners to explore Mandarin and China in the context of the United Nations' Goals for Sustainable Development. Includes a Learner Passport for the Goals and a planning document.

Engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals – A Secondary Teacher’s Experience

Through learner engagement with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, secondary teacher Jo Fraser has recognised the positive impact on the pupils she worked with and is excited about the diverse and significant opportunities for learning that arise when embedded throughout the secondary curriculum.

Foundation for Environmental Education - Positive Actions for the SDGs

Examples of positive action on the Sustainable Development Goals in the Eco-Schools programme and the concept of handprint actions as behavioural outcomes to achieve each of the SDGs. Includes examples from India, Northern Ireland, Madagascar, the United States and Uganda.

ScotDec - Future Focus: Exploring the SDGs

This film-focused resource has been created to bring together short and engaging films, with a focus on stimulating debate around a variety of global issues. A session plan accompanies every film including details about the film, a workshop outline and a visual template for participants to fill in. No film lasts longer than 20 minutes and they were all selected by young people for young people.

TES Online - Exploring the Global Goals

Help children and young people explore the goals in more detail with resources from TES Online. Lots of free downloadable resources including lesson plans, activities and games to introduce the goals to pupils of all ages.

The World's Largest Lesson

An excellent opportunity to teach a lesson or assembly about the Global Goals encouraging them to think about what they can do.  Resources are available for all ages and include: animations, assembly materials on the goals, videos to generate discussion, films for younger children from Hippoworks called "Simon Says Save the Climate" and a series of lesson plans on a wide range of topics.

United Nations - All Aboard for Global Goals!

Thomas & Friends have collaborated with the UN to teach children and parents about 6 of these Global Goals in this video.  

United Nations - SDG Book Club

The SDG Book Club aims to use books as a tool to encourage children ages 6-12 to interact with the principles of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through a curated reading list of books from around the world related to each of the 17 SDGs in all six official UN languages—Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.