08.29.25
It’s important to start local before you go global.
Originally published by Schools for Purpose
This article is part of an ongoing collaborative series that brings the School Matrix to life; a blueprint designed to reimagine education for the future. By exploring real-world case studies from pioneering schools and programs around the world, we aim to explore practical ways to embed life skills, self-discovery, and purpose into everyday learning.
In this collaborative article, we explore how Global Citizenship and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be integrated into education through two inspiring case studies:
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are part of a framework designed by the United Nations to give a clear and structured overview into the world’s biggest socio-environmental problems. Children will inevitably face these challenges in the future, so building awareness and understanding from an early age is essential.
Global Citizenship teaches children to lead healthy lives, become aware of the world around them and develop the necessary skills, values and compassion to become future changemakers who vouch for sustainability.
UNESCO explains that Global Citizienship education addresses three core conceptual dimensions of learning:
“For education to be transformative, knowledge (cognitive domain) must touch the heart (socio-emotional domain) and turn into action to bring about positive change (behavioural domain). This framework emphasises an education that fulfils individual and national aspirations and thus ensures the well-being of all humanity and the global community at large (UNESCO, 2018, p. 2)”.
At Ages of Globalisation, students learn about the history and geography of our World across time and cultures by exploring the 7 ages of globalisation: Paleolithic, Neolithic, Equestrian, Classical, Ocean, Industrial and Digital.
The program offers 28 classes for free, containing video lectures, lesson plans and activities, all aimed at understanding global change through time and the role of SDGs in the 21st century. It also includes virtual visits to UNESCO World Heritage Sites and monthly live sessions with world leaders to explore different perspectives and learn from experts.
Students complete activities and research projects aligned with specific SDGs to understand how their country is handling the issue by analysing policies, trends and national goals.
Each lesson contains prompts to help redirect children such as:
They then discuss solutions and ideas with their classmates, UN officials, and youth activists during virtual sessions.
At the Academy for Global Citizenship in Chicago, kindergartners aren't presented with big world problems yet (such as rainforest deforestation). This is to avoid upsetting and overwhelming them from a young age. Instead, they start observing their own culture, traditions and origins and compare it to their classmates. They focus on building small, healthy habits over time, like having shorter showers or picking up litter, to better grasp how even small actions can make a difference.
As they grow older, they begin exploring how they can positively impact their own school and neighbourhood, and eventually become more global oriented. Children explore real world examples of other children positively impacting their community to understand that no one is too “small” to change things.
They also explore where food, clothes and other items they frequently use come from, by analysing the item’s supply chain, how far it travelled and the impact this has on the planet and its inhabitants.
Students have access to all 17 SDGs and have to do a service project attached to them. For SDG #1: No Poverty, students have collected blankets and food donations for those in need, whilst others have promoted the issue to their community and raised money for charities.
Global citizenship isn't just about solving world problems, it is first and foremost about developing the mental capacity to see beyond the self and think about others.
At AGC, 2nd and 3rd graders learn from people in the past in a social activism module, and get to choose their own area of interest. They are then placed in one of five different groups based on what they picked:
Each group is tasked with picking a few key people to research in their own category (such as Martin Luther King for Human Rights or Jane Goodall for Environmentalism).
They then create “museums” on these activitists containing timelines of their lives and have to come up with a related group action that could positively impact their school. For example, the world peace group, created a slide deck with meditation and mindfulness resources to help other students find inner peace in challenging moments.
At AGC, teachers act as facilitators who help students think, plan, strategise and get back on track (when necessary) through targeted questioning and feedback.
For example, during projects, 8th graders have three advisors to present their ideas and plans to. The advisors act as “the voice of reason” and give them the guidance they need to achieve their goals whilst following learning outcomes. Students are given a planning template that outlines where to go, who to talk to, what resources they may need… to promote agency, independence and critical thinking.
Teachers follow a planner and rubrics to measure student progress in line with learning outcomes and IB standards. They focus on the process more than the final product and give necessary feedback that promotes continuous improvement.
Rubrics tend to follow several desired outcomes covering the different steps of the project: from research, to taking action and, reflecting on the experience. Each outcome is graded from 0 to 8 in terms of how well this was implemented and documented.
An example of outcome might be their ability to plan and record the development process of the project or to evaluate the effectiveness of their action with regards to the problem they aimed to solve.
At AGC, students bring their learning beyond the classroom. They invite their own families to adopt healthier, more environmentally-friendly habits which helps connect what they have learnt at school with the real world.
Students occasionally collaborate with charities and local organisations and get to develop valuable life skills, like communication, self-esteem, initiative, and leadership, that prepare them for life beyond school.
Global citizenship education also opens doors to international exchange and connection. Through programs like AoG, students learn directly from world experts, participate in live global sessions, and explore perspectives from around the world. This type of experience is rare in traditional settings and incredibly valuable for the future.
On the school system level at AGC, solar panels are used to power the school. A lot of the materials are recycled, and some of the benches were even built using trees that were already on-site.
To integrate Global Citizenship in education, we have to think of schools like a pyramid, with different layers that all need to align: