Category: Inspiring Inquiry

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Inquiry into SDGs: Life Below Water

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 Below Water looks the way humans are treating our oceans, targeting issues such as marine pollution, over-exploited fish populations, and acidification of our oceans. And given the fact that 3 billion depend on the marine industry for their livelihoods, we need to find more sustainable use of these resources. Share these videos and books with your students to help them think about how these issues impact them!

Resource #1: Plastics Watch by BBC (see more clips here)

Resource #2: Henry – Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Resource #3: The Ocean Cleanup Technology, Explained via The Kid Should See This

Resource #4: Where Did the Oil Go? by NRDC via The Kid Should See This

Resource #5: Manfish: A Story of Jacques Cousteau by Jennifer Berne & Éric Puybaret; The Brilliant Deep by Kate Messner & Matthew Forsythe; Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle by Claire A. Nivola

Provocation Questions:

  • What resources do the oceans provide that humans use?
  • What is the relationship like between our oceans and humans?
  • How might that relationship improve to help both our oceans and humans, and what is our responsibility to do so?
  • What obstacles stand in the way of improving the way we care for our oceans?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into SDG’s: Gender Equality

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. 

With International Women’s Day last week, I thought this would be a great time to publish the Sustainable Development Goal of Gender Equality. This goal aims to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.”

Women and children are vulnerable in a myriad of ways, including child marriage, sexual violence, access to education, and presence in leadership, and equal pay. These resources are meant to help students consider what this global goal means to them and how they can be part of the solution.

Resource #1: #IWasTold by Ultimate Software

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLQkOHphhhY

Resource #2: by International Women’s Day 2018 by Vodafone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0dI6McraBM

Resource #3: Trailer for She Started It Movie

Resource #4: Dream Crazier by Nike

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whpJ19RJ4JY

Resource #5: Equality, Sports & Title IX ~Erin Buzuvis & Kristine Newall by TedEd

Resource #6: Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai and Kerascoet

Provocation Questions:

  • What is gender equality?
  • How do gender equality issues look different around the world? How do they look similar?
  • How is gender equality changing?
  • Whose responsibility is it to make things more equal for all people?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into SDGs: Reduced Inequalities

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. 

This week’s global goal aims to reduce inequality in and among countries. It is rooted in the fact that 10% of the world’s population earns up to 40% of the total global income, and it challenges leaders to consider ways we can ensure access to the local and global economy regardless of gender, race, or ethnicity. Share these resources with students to consider what this issue might mean for them and their communities. 

Resource #1: Do Not Read This by Room to Read

Resource #2: Remote Area Medical by Focus Forward Films

Resource #3: My Magic Mum by Stefan Hunt

Resource #4: Corto Ian by Fundación Ian

Resource #5: It’s Mine by Leo Lionni

Provocation Questions:

  • What does inclusion mean?
  • What does economic inclusion mean?
  • How does equality in literacy connect to equality in the economy?
  • How does access to medical attention connect to equality in the economy?
  • How does the video about the boy in a wheelchair connect to the concept of economic inclusion?
  • How/why are certain groups denied equal access to the local or global economy?
  • How is the amount of income people have changing today?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Inquiry into SDGs: Good Health & Well-Being

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 Good Health & Well-Being aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” Use these resources to help students inquire into what it means to provide health for all. 

Resource #1: What is a Food Desert? by Carb Loaded

Resource #2: Calm.com (see Calm for Schools free program)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZb3TQ_URpU

Resource #3: The Story of Cholera by The Global Health Media Project

Resource #4: Thing Things We Carry by The Herd

https://vimeo.com/303182924

Resource #5: The Curious Garden by Peter Brown (read here by johnvu)

Provocation Questions:

  • What is wellness?
  • What is health care?
  • How might good health and wellness solutions look different around the world? How might they look the same?
  • How does access to health care impact an individual? A community? The world?
  • How does wellness impact a person’s life?
  • How does what humans need for healthcare change over time?
  • What is our responsibility for good health and wellness? For ourselves? For others?
  • What is the connection between knowledge and good health?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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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