Attitudinal Changes Towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Through Student-Generated Sustainability Stories Anchored in Science and Information Literacies

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide an excellent framework to teach students about international efforts addressing targets to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This course-based assignment sought to explore if university students have a change in attitude towards sustainable development through information research, writing and sharing three short stories focused on SDGs such as clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, and climate action. In addition, the stories were written for the purpose of providing sustainability-themed content for pre-college classrooms.

The three short stories project is a course-based assignment that provides an opportunity for introductory-level non-science majors to think about what is relevant in their own learning of Earth science and sustainability and why the content and its application matters. Before the assignment was given, students were provided a validated attitudinal survey on four constructs of sustainable development - environment, economy, society, and education. Students were challenged to write three stories - a one-minute read (300 words), a three-minute read (900 words), and a five-minute read (1500 words). To obtain the content for their stories, students spent instructional time with a librarian who assisted students with obtaining credible information and how to evaluate online content. A writing and peer-review component required students to write about their sustainability topic in the And-But-Therefore (ABT) template. After completing the three stories, students were given the same attitudinal survey to measure any differences towards sustainable development.

In the end, students have worked to improve multiple literacies to formulate a collection of sustainability-themed short stories. These stories were provided to a statewide Earth science teachers association for their freely-available online database of curricular material and are currently being used by middle school and high school teachers and classrooms. The survey confirms improved student attitude on three of the four constructs. Importantly, the science content becomes relevant to all students and shows why sustainable development matters to individuals and the greater planet.