Newsletter October 2021: SDG Education at SDU

SDU is committed to the UN's 17 SDGs through its ‘free, critical and independent’ research and education, and through its own services. In SDU’s manifest for SDGs, we can find these specific goals for SDG Education:

• Provide students with education in knowledge, skills and motivation to work with the challenges behind the UN's SDGs. 
• Develop and initiate educational initiatives that support citizens’ opportunities for ‘lifelong employability’. 
• Mobilise and engage young people in working with the UN's SDGs.

SDG Education is being addressed in a variety of ways at SDU including the newly launched, online, self-study SDG-course for first-year students, which is full of insights into SDU research projects, many of which are interdisciplinary. Most Programmes of Study have integrated the course into the first-year portfolio for their bachelor’s students. You can read more about the course content and design of The Introductory course on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and university research and education in this interview with Caroline Zoffmann Jessen, the project leader. If you would like to access the course, contact the e-learning staff at your faculty.

For many Programmes at SDU, teaching about SDG research and addressing SDG related wicked problems is obvious. For example, in TEK’s ‘Experts in Team Innovation’ all teams identify how their project innovations address and engage with SDGs. For other Programmes, it can be more challenging to see how to integrate SDG education and that’s where the SDG Mapping process can help. The rationale behind the mapping process is to identify where SDG Education is already happening in a programme and where there’s further potential to engage with SDGs. This process can be integrated with mapping for other SDU strategies such as employability, internationalisation and digitalisation. Once mapped, the programme team has an illustrative resource to inform discussions and plans on how to make SDGs more visible and opportunities for further integration.

The Law Programme has recently been mapped for SDGs and “the mapping process provides the study board with an excellent starting point for further work on the SDGs. It’s a comprehensive yet easy to use tool that will lead to meaningful integration of the SDGs in our programmes" -  says Ulrike Fleth-Barten, head of studies, International law.

There is currently a student initiative to help students easily identify which elective courses address SDGs. The plan is to map electives against the SDGs, making it easy to choose ones with SDG content. If you would like to know more about having a Programme or course mapped, contact Donna Hurford at dhu@sdu.dk.  

SDG Education isn’t just about course content - it is also about how we teach and how students can actively engage with SDG related wicked problems. SDUUP provides courses, resources and consultancy on ways to accommodate interdisciplinary approaches and to integrate collaborative learning, team-based learning, case-based learning and much more. 

The SDG Hub supports student and staff led SDG initiatives, you can find out more from this interview with Flemming Bridal Rasmussen (Head of the SDG HUB and Chief Adviser in the Rector's Office).