Social making: teaching children to design solutions for the global goals

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN SDGs) are a bid to transform the world by addressing the urgent environmental, economic, social, and political challenges facing our world at large. Education for children on global goals can be achieved if schools are provided with learning resources and technological tools to educate their students through increased engagement and active participation. This work-in-progress article describes a constructionist workshop in a low-income school using the BBC Microbit and hands-on problem-solving activities addressing sustainable development goals. We share our insights on how the children designed meaningful solutions during a Makeathon to tackle problems faced in their communities, that are also globally relevant.