Agents of Change: a Toolkit for schools and teachers
The Agents of Change Toolkit (ACT) project has developed a toolkit (including a range of serious games) that helps teachers and schools to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
About ACT
The Agents of Change Toolkit (ACT) project is funded by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute and will run activities from March – August 2020.
We will co-design a toolkit (including a serious game) that facilitates teachers and schools acting as agents of change for achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). All of the project outputs will be posted to this website and will be freely available for at least 5 years.
More about ACT
Schools and teachers are recognised as key players for accelerating progress towards UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Research shows that teachers can and do act as agents of change, however, school leadership and teachers often feel unprepared for dealing with these challenges. The Agents of Change Toolkit (ACT) project (taking place March-August 2020) creates knowledge exchange opportunities for teachers, researchers, leadership, educational authorities, designers, and out-of-school educators via a series of seminars and workshops, and will co-design an engaging, practical toolkit for schools and teachers to identify the changes required to improve education around the SDGs.
The toolkit aims to help educators:
- build the national SDGs indicators into their local targets;
- identify relevant knowledge and network with players within and beyond schools to consider solutions; and
- evaluate their impact.
This approach recognises that achievement of SDGs is a matter of building inclusive communities as much as building knowledge. If we are to avoid treating SDGs as third world problems, raising students’ knowledge and awareness of big global challenges such as social justice and climate change need to be accompanied by modelling how issues of inequality and sustainability can be addressed in their immediate school environment.
The toolkit enables an accessible, structured and engaging way of thinking through the whole-school approaches that, although recognised as essential, are often challenging for schools because they require time-intense coordination between different actors.
Funder
This project is a collaboration between researchers, practictioners, and leadership, funded by the Scottish Universities Insight Institute.
| Start date | 1 Mar 2020 |
| End date | 31 Jul 2021 |
Research Team
- Dr Nataša Pantić
- Director of CREID and Senior Lecturer, Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh
- Dr Dianne Cantali
- University of Dundee
- Dr Daisy Abbott
-
The Glasgow School of Art
- Betsy King
-
Learning for Sustainability
- Alison Humphreys
-
Quality Improvement Education Officer at City of Edinburgh Council
- Rachel Binnie
-
Glasgow City Council, Learning for Sustainability
- Rosie McColl
-
South East Improvement Collaborative