Thursday, September 20, 2018

The Global Goals for Sustainable Development


Overview:  This agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity. It also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom. We recognize that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, is the greatest global challenge and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development. All countries and all stakeholders, acting in collaborative partnership, will implement this plan. We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals and 169 targets which we are announcing today demonstrate the scale and ambition of this new universal Agenda. They seek to build on the Millennium Development Goals and complete what these did not achieve. They seek to realize the human rights of all and to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. They are integrated and indivisible and balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental.

Directions:  Please visit The Global Goals for Sustainable Development website below.  Find 1-2 goals you would like to explore this year.  Explain why your choices would be important to you.  How do you see this playing out in the literature we read?






Also, Check out Global Goals Week at:  http://globalgoalsweek.org/



31 comments:

  1. Well, these are too important to choose from. I guess I'll have to see which ones are noticeable in the texts we're reading. In Pride and Prejudice, for example, There are many characters who challenge class differences and sexual inequality.

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  3. 2 goals I would pursuit would be saving Life on Land, Life in Water, and Climate Action. Due to the ever growing industrial industry, wildlife and the Earth itself is being put into danger. It doesn't have to be a dolphin choking on a plastic ring to tell you how much humans have polluted the Earth. The industrial industry also has a lot of harmful emissions, one of the more well known one being CO2, which thins out Ozone Layer and other protective atmospheric covers, which'll lead to stronger and more dangerous storms, longer and hotter heat waves, and colder winters which would only get worse as time progresses.

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  4. Long live renewable energy!

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  5. I believe that the key to all of the sustainable development goals is quality education. When people are educated they are capable of solving all of their daily problems. Learning math and science helps solve environmental and industrial problems. Learning language and history helps solve social problems. Rather than just giving people what they need, we need to teach them so that they can sustain themselves. I see this playing out in the literature that we read by the characters interacting with each other and sharing their own views and thoughts to grow as individuals.

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  6. Wow! I am already seeing some great initiatives! Thank you so much everyone.

    I decided to select two sustainable goals for the 2018-2019 school year. Almost two years ago, I decided to become a vegan after watching a documentary called “Food Choices,” which inspired me to make the life change and read a series of books, scientific articles, and interviews about the food industry and its impact on not only animals, but the environment. Therefore, I want to focus on “SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.” I not only have switched to a vegan diet, but started to only wear clothing that is environmentally sound and cruelty free.

    Further, my work this year with Sustainable Global Goals and Teaching Global Classrooms extended from last year’s Fulbright program. With our class blog and new grading system, I am hoping to promote genuine learning and change the way we view school and testing. With the implementation of global initiatives to enrich our literature units, I hope students will feel the immediacy of literature and make the books more meaningful. Further, TGC hopes students will become global citizens who take action to the world’s needs. I look forward to taking action with all of you. Therefore, my other focus will be “SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

    I look forward to working with all of you this year!

    Mr. P. ;)

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  8. A goal I want to pursue this year is sustaining life below water. With the growing amount of pollution building up in the ocean, climate change, and overfishing greatly affecting marine populations, we are endangering not only them, but also other populations of animals that rely on the ocean for resources. This issue is important to me because much of this was caused by humans, and it breaks my heart that we are causing the downfalls for these populations. It's also heartbreaking for me because not much has been done about it, and the problem continues to worsen. If we work for a solution to protect and preserve marine life, we would simultaneously be working to save other populations, which would benefit environments, animals, and humans worldwide.

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  9. The goal I want to explore is good health and well-being. The reason for this is that when it comes to health, in terms of nutrition and body function, I get extremely interested. As a student I love science because it helps my understanding of the body to grow and understand how things in the world works. Learning about good health is so important and interesting to me because it helps me as an athlete. Eating and treating my body right helps me perform at my highest level. Additionally, this is also what I would like to pursue in college to deepen my interest: kinesiology.

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  10. This year I would like to explore climate action and sustainable cities and communities. I think it is most important to save our environment because if we keep treating it the way we do the environment won't be able to support us, which means none of these other issues become important anymore. While reading "Pride and Prejudice" I realize that this is a different time period and they didn't know about climate change, so I don't see these goals playing out in the novel.

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  11. A goal I would love to pursue this year is quality education. I believe that education matters and is the basis that will eventually solve countless of other sustainable development goals. When people are competent of getting quality education this can assist in decreasing inequalities and discrimination against other people. Most predominantly education can terminate the cycle of poverty which affects nearly HALF of the world's population. In some vital research I have done, I've found that if all children left school with basic reading and writing skills, "171 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty" which is approximately a 12 percent drop in the world total. Through education people can live better lives and also attain better jobs which will benefit their future generations, and hopefully leave less people in poverty. Quality education gives us the ability to develop opinions and acquire knowledge about the world around us. I believe that the more knowledge I will gain the more opportunities there would be for me in the future. This would most significantly help me grow as a person and evolve in this world we live in.

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  12. Chloe Hanrahan

    I think this year I'd like to focus on Climate Change. I think this is the most urgent challenge the world is facing nowadays. We as a people have ignored this problem for so long and hoped it would go away. But the truth is that Climate Change is a big problem effecting every aspect of life and every place on earth. If we want to fix education, gender equality, our own health and social issues we have to make sure our planet is healthy so we have a place to combat these issues. The little things each person can do is what we as global citizens need to do. Our scientists have always been working hard to combat global warming, but without every person participating in the fight for a clean world, it won't work.

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  13. One goal that I would want to explore is quality education. I believe education is the answer to all of the other issues. If people are able to understand what is happening in the world right now they will be able to think of ways to save it or fix it. If they are being taught about what happened before that caused the issues we have now, they will be able to prevent from them happening again in the future. Lack of education is the root of most problems and they can be fixed by teaching people. I think this will play out in literature in the way the stories and novels will be written. Like in Pride and Prejudice, it is shown how Elizabeth is a smart woman and doesn’t let herself be pushed around by others. The more modern the novels we read, it will show how much more independent woman will become in them because that is the time period where women started to educate each other and learned about the problems they face.

    Nikita Orbits

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  14. The goal that stood out to me the most was definitely "Quality Education." This is because I believe having a good education is something that everyone should have. Having a good education could help people understand what's going on in the world and could make people better off in general. They could understand the problems and possibly try to come up with solutions to fix them. If people are taught about things that went wrong in the past, they could learn what not to do, to make sure history doesn't repeat itself (which we have seen multiple times throughout history).

    In literature, we've seen this in Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, since she is a very smart and bright girl who doesn't take too kindly to being pushed around by others. As time goes on, we see more of this in modern novels with female characters.

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  15. Find 1-2 goals you would like to explore this year. Explain why your choices would be important to you. How do you see this playing out in the literature we read?

    I would like to explore 2 and 4: NO HUNGER and QUALITY EDUCATION. As someone who devours food everyday and enjoys the art of taste, I cannot imagine a world where I could not eat incredible food or any food everyday. It's horrible that there are hundreds of millions of people without food everyday, dying because they are without food. Children aren't growing, people are dying too early. And the fact that we waste so much food in America is awful to me because that food could be everything to the people who need it, but are overlooked by those who have it. As for education, I have always been a curious child. Wasn't everyone? And I was able to facilitate that curiosity with books and adults who I could ask. But not every child was able to go to the library to find books on their interests. Not every child could find an adult willing to answer their questions. And that is horrible as well, the death of learning. For children are the future, and what future are we leading if we allow them to be stopped in their learning tracks? What message are we putting out, if we believe only our education matters? In the literature, all the characters are blessed with wealth to have servants and afford expensive foods and have it in an abundance of sorts. If, however, they were to be thrown out as soon as Mr. Bennet passes, then they may be facing similar conditions. As for education, all the girls can read quite well I would assume, and were educated in music. They had more learning in their pinky fingers than most people had in their entire family. Yet they were looked down upon by the Bingley sisters for their "poor" education. It is truly showing of that time that the most "educated" of people were so awful in character.

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  16. The goal that I would like to explore this year is goal number 3 about good health and well-being. This goal interests me as it is such a universal objective since everyone needs to take care of themselves and try to stay in good health. While I definitely agree that all of these goals that the UN has are very important, some are not very difficult if people are not generally in good health. While education is very important and necessary for medical care, we also must be healthy enough to be able to be educated and then help others. These goals are all linked to one another, so it will not be possible to achieve one without do considerable work on the other. In the literature we read, health will always play a role as it is such a part of all people’s lives, although it is more prominent in some. There is generally some type of health issue in pieces of literature because it is a normal and unavoidable part of life. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, we have already seen Jane come down with a very bad cold which then ends up helping Elizabeth and Darcy’s relationship along.

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    Replies
    1. I really like these ideas and opinions.

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  18. I think that poverty is the most important goal. If no one is poor then we can pay for all of the other stuff. But in order to have this one, we need number 17. If we have the partnership then they can all come in place

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  19. Gender equality is a topic I would like to explore because we all have the right to have equality and we should improve on it in every way we can. In the novel, of course men are more respected than women in the this time, but later as time changes, the girls will be able to express themselves without a male guardian.

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  20. Please visit The Global Goals for Sustainable Development website below. Find 1-2 goals you would like to explore this year. Explain why your choices would be important to you. How do you see this playing out in the literature we read?

    The global goals that I would like to explore this year is clean water and sanitation, and reduces inequalities. In my opinion, no matter who you are or what your class is, you should be able to have clean drinking water and access to a hot shower. If you can't afford a hot shower or clean water, you won't get equal opportunity to get enough money to afford these if you aren't clean or prepared enough to get a job. This can also tie into the reduction of inequalities because if we are living in a free country, then we should all get equal opportunities to thrive. People think that by everyone having equality we will loose class and structure but i think that if you're a hard worker, then you should get rewarded for your hard work. You shouldn't work hard then get shot down because of your gender or race.

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  21. The two goals that I would like to focus on this year out of the given Global Goals are: zero poverty and zero hunger. These two goals are important to me because I think that every human has a right to some basic and pretty essential needs. One of these necessities is having something to eat everyday. I also chose zero poverty because though capitalism ensures that there will be different levels of wealth in society, I think extreme poverty is something that people (especially children) end up growing up in. This puts certain people at different starting points in life that can hold people back from reaching their full potential or from receiving opportunities that most people are born expecting to receive. In the book, the characters are mostly wealthy for their time period (though some more than others: the Bennetts are less wealthy than the Bingley's and Mr. Darcy.) However, even small differences in wealth in the book seem to define the characters and label them as valuable or invaluable. So, wealth, is the ultimate factor for women when choosing a partner, usually regardless of character. So, even in the book, poverty holds people back from society, and I think that everybody should have a chance to follow their passion in society regardless of their wealth.

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  22. The goals I chose was Life on Land and clean energy. I chose life on land because I want to try and help more life on earth like volunteering more at like MSPCA. Maybe even try to raise awareness for animals. I chose clean energy because a few years ago I did a project about and I started looking more about it and I want to try and raise awareness and maybe get my mom to get a satellite for are house.

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  23. The sustainable goal that I want to focus on is Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. Our whole world revolves around power and the way we get this energy impacts the world in harmful ways. When the infrastructure doesn’t deliver power safely, causing fires and power outages, like in Andover recently, it felt like the world was ending. And for some, their lives won’t return back to normal. I chose this because of this recent local tragedy caused by Columbia Gas. Developed nations depend on energy being provided to them by big industry even though the people in undeveloped nations manage without the same innovations. Not only do we need to bridge the gap for all nations to have a reliable energy source, we need to find a way to do it so that we don’t kill our planet in the process. We have the innovative technology and resources to change the way energy is collected, stored and distributed. In America we say bigger is better, so let’s make a big change to make a better difference.

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  24. And all of the above are most likely to work if Democracy conquers the world.

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  25. The sustainable goal that I focused on was poverty. Based on the U.S. Census Bureau's 2016 estimates, 43.1 million Americans were living in poverty. The reason this goal stood out to me is because I see it everywhere and it hurts to see just how many people live this way. I was born and grew up in Salem, Mass. and continue to spend a lot of time there with friends. People sleeping on benches and in alleyways is not unusual thing for me to encounter, and nothing breaks my heart more than to see someone curling up on the street with all their belongings kept in a pile close to them. Just last Wednesday, the body of a 28 year old homeless woman was discovered in Salem. This news horrified me, someone so young does not deserve this unjust end. I want to know anything that I can do to help with the insanely high numbers of poverty in the U.S., starting with handing out blankets or mittens to anyone who is in need, especially as the harsh winter weather is upon us.

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  26. One goal that I am focusing on is life on land, and this is because humans are life on land, and I believe that humans are the most important creature on earth. I think that if we can provide a clean and healthy environment on earth for each other, than the rest of the goals will sort of fall into place. Life on earth also includes keeping or planet safe, and this is a very important thing as it is our home and our only home. Another goal that I would like to focus on is affordable and clean energy, and this is because I think that if we can make energy affordable, it will help the entire world because we need energy and power, and a lot of places don't make that their first priority because they have bigger problems to worry about, but I still think that it is very important and something that we should be focusing on.

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  27. I think the most important goal on the list is quality education. If the entire world has quality education, many of the other major world problems will be solved. There would be more industry, innovation and infrastructure if everyone was well educated. There would be more decent work and economic growth. If those things are all going smoothly, then almost everything else will follow. I see this a lot in the literature we are reading. The more educated men are the ones that build the economy, and make the innovations. Unfortunately not tapping into the other half of the population that drives lots of economy and innovation today.

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  28. Honestly I think climate action and no poverty are ones that I want to further explore. Climate action will help ensure that nature won't destroy us, which sounds like a quite promising thing that we should look into. Along with us, climate action will help save other animals and endangered species. Every species is a key player in how our ecosystem, no matter how small they might be. I also think no poverty would be a great one to jump on. No poverty will ensure that every person has a well paying job and will give every person a role in society. I think that this paired with climate action would be an ideal world. A world where everyone has a job, and these jobs don't pose a threat to the world and how it develops around us. I am not sure how these ideas will play out in the literature we read, however. Perhaps we will get motifs based around the poor and motifs based around defending the environment, but that is all I can think of right now.

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  29. As part of the Innovation and Design Lab class last year, I, and several others, already worked on some of these sustainability goals. More specifically, we focused on life under water and affordable and clean energy. What we did, is we came up with prototypes and designs to solve the problems or to contribute to their development. At the end of the first semester, we presented our project at the MIT Learn Launch: hydro-electric power generation combined with quality education. We prototyped a system that could monitor our streams and rivers, could generate power, and educate others on the idea of sustainable energy. Our system was a modified water wheel that would create power from the motion of the river which we simulated with water pumps and tubes.
    Even though I really enjoyed working on this project and sustainability goal, the most important to me would have to be to improve the quality of education to provide better work and economic stability. By improving the quality of education, much of our problems would be solved much faster, we’d have smarter leaders, workers, and citizens to solve problems like climate change and poverty. A quality education goes hand in hand with a strong economy and workforce. The only way to put into action our education and knowledge would be to have a job system that truly promoted innovation, hard work, and actual problem solving. I say truly because although there are some very bright minds out there, capable of solving the world’s problems, they go into finance due to economic reasons such as making more money and financial stability. Even though jobs in finance are literal hell and do not promote innovation, hard work, problem solving, or mental health especially. We need a strong education and a different economic system in order to use our education.

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Due Thursday, June 13th - All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Mr. Pellerin's Survey of British Literature Class.

Overview :  Go back to our first blog, and walk through the 2018-2019 school year.  Revisit the books we read and our class responses.  Look...