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Ulster and De Montfort Universities top the SDG Teach In leaderboards

The SDG Teach In 2020 campaign called educators across all stages of education to embed the Sustainable Development Goals within their teaching, assessments and extracurricular activities during the week of the 17th-21th February 2020. 

The aim of the campaign was to equip students with sustainability literacy in order to ensure graduates to share responsibility as leaders not only for the environment but also for social justice for the next generation.  

The campaign, in its 3rd year, reached an overall of 307 teaching staff across 24 UK Institutions, with a total of 25,026 students reached by the initiative. Amongst the 24 universities leaderboards were created to showcase the top three institutions for student engagement and number of staff pledged:  

 

SDG Teach In

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Across the 307 teaching staff who took part in the pledge, we have selected 17 examples of best practice to showcase how the SDGs and sustainability were embedded in the curriculum, from course modules to assessments. The 17 examples aim to show the breadth of sustainability and its relevance to all disciplines. These will shortly be shared and published in a report.  

R.Cameron, a lecturer in Food and Nutrition Policies and Standards at Ulster University took part in the Teach In, commenting that sustainability �should be core to all teaching, continually making the linkages between disciplines, topics and the contribution to overarching SDG's. Sustainability is not the domain of one discipline or profession, it is the responsibility of all disciplines�.  

Different approaches were taken to include the SDGs in teaching and assessments during the SDG Teach In week. For example, Dr. Laura Cashman, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University embedded the SDGs in the module of �Contemporary Global Politics� by letting students examine the political and ecological challenges to ensure food security for all. The class debated whether the SDG, Zero Hunger was realistic and considered the kinds of structural changes which would be required to see success in the next ten years.  

Course Director and Lecturer, Keith Millar at Ulster University, embedded the SDGs in the module �Supply Chain Management� by equipping students with an understanding of the appraisal of the SDGs as best practice in the success of an organisation. The goals have been built into a video providing guidance to students on completion of the assessment. The research undertaken by student groups, in assessing risk within global supply chains and identifying mitigation and controls, encouraged the students to consider how these may be related to the SDGs. 

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