Sustainable Development Goals & Art

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) & Art

I have always been passionate about making art meaningful and always hope that my students develop an understanding that art is a powerful tool in changing the world for the better. By looking carefully at ways to combine art with the Sustainable Development Goals I have been able to create some exciting learning experiences which continue to develop and improve each year.

How can we teach Global Goals (SDG’s & Goodlife goals) through art?

SDG+ Symbols

Symbolism and meaning in art is a fantastic entry point into allowing students to develop a deeper understanding of art making and art appreciation. Our year 5 students focused their attention toward bigger concepts such as conflict and peace and take part in a Model United Nations event. I thought this was an idea opportunity for students to look closely at the symbols chosen to represent the Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. Through a careful analysis, our students re-designed one of the SDG’s into what they felt was a better representation of the goal. Students then carved this out of thin lino/rubber and made prints, thereby creating our own SDG images. This led to a deeper understanding of the SDG, and also a better appreciation for how important symbols, meaning and visual literacy are in our world.

Lots of great resources on fusing plastic bags on Pinterest

SDG & Sustainable Fashion

Linking real life learning in the art room can sometimes be more challenging than you might imagine. Our students were lucky enough to be recently invited to take part in a recycled/ sustainable Fashion Show. My previous role as Service Coordinator at our school meant that I was always on the look out for authentic ways our students can connect to projects within our community.

I have invited my students to design and make a piece of wearable clothing. We will be using hot glue guns, heat guns, clothes irons and soldering irons to help us join and chance plastic and cardboard under adult supervision of course.

Year 3 Students making Chinese themed gift cards

Designing for a real audience-our community

SDG’s & Holidays

A great way to interweave SDG’s with real life learning is to think about holidays children celebrate. At our international schools we value difference and are currently focused on improving our intercultural understanding across all aspects of our school. Each year I invite students from different year groups to design and make quality gift cards for different holidays that our students celebrate such as; Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Chinese New Year, New Year’s Eve, Thank you, Happy Birthday etc. Depending on which country I am living in or the cultural backgrounds of my students means that their designs reflect their heritage or current geographical location. In past years we have printed sets of 10 gift cards and sold them to our community but in recent years we realised the importance of asking families to pre order and pay for gift cards so that cardboard and printing costs were not wasted.

Students are often asked to vote on their classmates work, choose the top 5 designs from each class and those will be uploaded onto an online shop where families can pre-order them. In addition to this, funds raised will be donated to those in need. Students are also working on researching top Sustainability tips for the holiday season. These tips, such as using gift fabric to wrap presents instead of paper, will be handwritten on the back of our cards in an effort to educate our community on the idea of a small teaspoon of change making a bigger impact.

Food & Art

Exploring Zero Hunger through a food waste initiative

Global Goal #2-Eat Better & SDG No.2-Zero Hunger

One of our most highly successful food initiatives resulted in our student leadership team working closely with mentor teachers and our catering department to look at how much food we wasted per week and why this was happening? To further promote our initiative students were given the chance to enter a Food Waste competition with 4 categories. Students could create artwork from their food scraps based on Canadian artist Lauren Purcell (https://culinarycanvas.ca/), make a poster about food waste as opposed to ‘healthy eating’, create 3D sculptures made from trash or take a creative photo of themselves surrounded by the rubbish they make. Our students had a fantastic time creating their artwork while highlighting an important GoodLife Goal.

Creating awareness around Christmas and Holidays

A Sustainable Christmas & Chinese New Year

When the festive season comes around, we are remind our school community about the importance of thinking ‘sustainably’ for important celebrations. In the past our students have created wreaths from sustainable materials, we have decorated our school with recycled decorations and this year students are giving each other second hand books, rather than new toys. In Shanghai and Vietnam, Year 6 designed and created quality handmade gift cards for both Christmas, Chinese New Year and Tet Lunar New Year celebrations. Their cards will be sold to our community to raise money for those in need and we have made sure to include some sustainability tips on the back of our cards this year.

Some of their tips include; turning off Christmas tree lights when you go to sleep, using food left overs to create new dishes, giving gifts in reusable materials bags and giving ‘experiences’ as a gift such as food tours, language or art lessons rather than objects.

GoodLife Goals (SDG’s) & Art Ideas

No 5-Defend Everyone’s right to an education

Goodlife Goal # 4-Learn & Teach

SDG No # 4-Quality Education

Year 5 participated in the Model United Nations with a focus on equal access to education and equal access for boys and girls to attend school. Students will be exploring symbol making and learning about the power of graphic images to represent ideas and values. Students were asked to redesign a Goodlife Goal or a Sustainable Development Goal and create their own infographic, with a focus on illustration and design elements.

Focus on #5-Defend people’s right to clean water and a toilet

GoodLife Goal #6

SDG No #6 Clean Water & Sanitation

https://www.goodlifegoals.org/

Year 3 students spent a term inquiring about connections between mountains, rivers and the importance of water. In art we linked real life learning in the classroom with an art project where students will be asked to design and make their own models of children’s toilets to help highlight the importance of sanitation and clean water.

Lonely Planet Kids only books-Time to create a Shanghai version

GoodLife Goal # 8-Do Good Work & No 11. Love where you live!

SDG #8-Decent work & Economic growth + SDG # 11-Sustainable Cities & Communities

Year 6 students learned all about migration and looked at how and why cities change . As part of their learning students in one of my classes in China decided to create a website to be published with top tips for families new to Shanghai and to our school. This idea was based on the perspective of a students and was inspired by the great series by Lonely Planet. Other ideas include creating some illustrated mini phrase books or memory game cards as well to help new arrivals learn some survival Mandarin language. For more detailed plans head to my SDG website https://www.teachsdgart.com/