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Title: Education innovation to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires innovations in education to build key competencies in all learners. Learning objectives for SDGs identified by UNESCO like the “Integrated problem-solving competency,” if integrated properly with high school curriculum, can contribute sustainable development solutions for Belize. Additionally, the 3rd international conference of SIDS http://www.sids2014.org) under the theme, “The sustainable development of small island developing states through genuine and durable partnerships,” stressed investment in education and training, including through partnerships with migrants and diaspora communities, with “concrete, focused, forward-looking and action oriented programmes.” The Sagicor Visionaries Challenge, a sustainability challenge launched by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), the Caribbean Science Foundation, and the Ministries of Education across 12 Caribbean countries in 2012, represented an example of such a partnership that fostered many key competencies now needed for meeting the SDGs. It asked secondary school students in the Caribbean to identify a challenge facing their school and or community, propose a sustainable and innovative solution, and show how that solution uses Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as well as got the support of the school community. For its inaugural year, teacher and student sensitization workshops were organized in each country. Teachers supervised the student projects with support from mentors who were either local or virtual, including many members of the Caribbean diaspora. 175 projects entered the competition, representing 900 students ranging in age from 11 to 19. Experience from the inaugural year, which saw Belize’s Bishop Martin Secondary emerge the regional challenge winner, demonstrated interest by young people of the Caribbean in many of the themes listed in the SIDS outcomes like climate change, sustainable energy, disaster risk reduction, sustainable oceans and seas, food security and nutrition, water and sanitation, sustainable transportation, sustainable consumption and production, and health and non-communicable diseases. Reflection on student projects from Belize from the 2013 challenge, as well as current examples of teacher led inquiry-based projects for CXC’s School Based Assessments (SBAs), offer multiple opportunities for ensuring reef to ridge sustainable development in Belize and the rest of the Caribbean.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1735320 1243510
NSF-PAR ID:
10111355
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
12 th Natural Resource Management & Research Symposium “BELIZE, ‘THROUGH THE BOTTLENECK’”
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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