SDG Month Canada
Increasing awareness of the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
What is SDG Month Canada?
Formerly SDG Week, SDG Month is an initiative to build awareness and engagement around the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
The event invites Canada’s universities and colleges to join in the efforts during the month of March through hosting workshops, sharing resources, and more. You can find the full calendar of events here, and read the major goals here. Read on to find three resources that can help you understand and integrate the SDGs into your course or event.
What happens next matters most
CTLI is proud to be supporting SDG Month Canada this year. We understand that we’re preparing learners for the workforce, but we must also ensure that they have a habitable environment and just societies to succeed in, long into the future. It’s not an issue we face alone. In creating these goals, the United Nations has recognized the need for a massive movement towards sustainability.
While climate action is a large factor in this, it’s just a portion of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that the United Nations has developed (United Nations, n.d.).
“The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries – developed and developing – in a global partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.” — United Nations (n.d.).
How are we contributing?
CTLI is contributing to SDG month by creating educational resources on sustainability for instructors and staff to integrate into their practices.
Jaddon Park, Academic Services Manager, has prepared three resources: a Sustainable Events Checklist, the Education for Sustainable Development microcredential, and an interactive classroom activity to introduce the SDGs to students this month.
1. Sustainable events checklist
From institution-wide events like an open house to department-centered events that celebrate employee achievements, this list contains sustainability suggestions for every type of event.
The checklist has items you would expect, such as how to plan for a zero-waste event, but it also includes more intricate items like managing your digital footprint, using creative signage, and applying Indigenization practices.
The checklist is an Open Educational Resource, which means that anyone can download, use, and even edit the document to suit their needs.
2. Education for Sustainable Development microcredential
If you’re interested in strategies to integrate sustainability and the SDGs into your course, there’s a new microcredential built just for that! In the fall of 2024, Jaddon Park developed the Education for Sustainable Development microcredential with support from Kris Hodgson-Bright and our CTLI team.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) encourages us to consider local examples that connect to global issues. When everyone adopts a sustainability worldview, we see how seemingly small actions build upon each other to create massive global impact. The goal of ESD is to help learners develop this sustainability worldview.
According to UNESCO (2020), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)…
“…empowers learners with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to take informed decisions and make responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society empowering people of all genders, for present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity.”
ESD can be applied in a classroom setting in actionable ways; the microcredential explains how to implement open-ended, generative-thinking processes, including:
- critical thinking
- problem solving
- participatory decision making, and
- systems thinking
The microcredential details each of these methods and more. It can also help make content more engaging, relevant, and applicable to real-world scenarios.
Why integrate sustainability into your course?
ESD pedagogy principles promote engagement, experiential learning, problem-solving, and systems thinking. Additionally, ESD pedagogy encourages a focus on real-world challenges.
Educating students on sustainability worldviews helps create responsible citizens who can positively impact their communities. A sustainability worldview includes the belief that each of us can develop a sense of agency, efficacy, and hopefulness by creating conditions that foster well-being for all, forever.
You can enroll in the Education for Sustainable Development microcredential here.
3. An ESD activity to try
Looking for a meaningful and fun way to get involved in SDG Month Canada? Try the following activity with your students. It doesn’t matter what topic or course you’re teaching; this activity is easily connected to any discipline.
SDG 3-tiered cake activity
The following Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) sorting activity can be an engaging and thought-provoking group activity to help introduce the SDGs to your students.
Instructions:
- Create groups of 2 – 4 students and provide each group with the following materials:
- A copy of the SDG 3-tiered cake model
- A copy of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (or download the goals as individual files)
- Each SDG targets one of the following areas, which correspond to the layers of the cake: planet (biosphere), people (society), or prosperity (economy). Give each group 10 – 15 minutes to consider each of the SDGs and sort them into the layers.
- After the sorting activity is complete, allow each group to share their results.
- Encourage students to discuss why some groups sorted their SDGs differently.
- At the end of the group sharing, show the video of the 3-tiered cake model and discuss (Stockholm Resilience Centre, 2021).
Prompting students to investigate the SDGs will help them develop a relationship between themselves and SDG-related issues. Taking time to understand learner experiences and awareness through discussions and collaborative action will ensure this process remains learner-centric.
Explaining the layers in the 3-tiered cake model
The 3-tiered wedding cake representation of the SDGs places the biosphere as the bottom tier. It is the foundation which is the aggregation of all living organisms on earth and the physical environment where they dwell, i.e., land, water, and atmosphere.
The middle tier is composed of the SDGs representing social interactions along with issues of inequality and injustice.
The top tier represents SDGs related to the economy, which focuses on the production and trading of goods and services; they are supported by the biosphere and society.
Note: This model for visualizing the SDGs was initially created in the context of food systems but has gained broader applications.
Sustainability Committee and learning more
If you’d like to learn more about the resources in this article or if you ‘d like to chat about how you can integrate sustainability concepts and pedagogy into your courses, please contact Jaddon Park at jaddon.park@lethpolytech.ca.
We’re also excited to announce that the Sustainability Committee has been restarted and we’re looking for more faculty and staff to join! Contact Jaddon to show your interest.
We hope these resources empower you to incorporate sustainable development into your course, curriculum, events, or daily practices.
References
Centre for Teaching & Learning. (June 13, 2024). A guide to embedding education for sustainability in higher education courses. Concordia University Library. https://opentextbooks.concordia.ca/education-sustainability/
Garg, A., Klassen, B., Micheels, E., Ross, H., Congreves, K., Forrester, S., Cao, T., & Teucher, U. (n.d.). Cultivating Change: A Prairie Guide to Sustainability Teaching and Learning Practices. University of Saskatchewan. https://openpress.usask.ca/sustainability/
Nolet, V. (2015). Educating for sustainability: Principles and practices for teachers. Taylor & Francis Group.
SDG Month Canada. (2025). About. https://sdgmonth.ca/#about
Stockholm Resilience Centre. (November 9, 2021). The SDGs “wedding cake” (animation) [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcvz6Fv8DqU&t=4s
UNESCO. (2020). Education for sustainable development: a roadmap. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374802
United Nations. (n.d.). The 17 goals. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. https://sdgs.un.org/goals
Alexanne Oke
Writer
Jaddon Park
Academic Services Manager
