Here There Everywhere

Every year in the Fall, world leaders come together at the United Nations (UN) in New York to discuss some of the world’s problems … and try to come up with solutions. It’s called the United Nations General Assembly .

This year was an especially big deal because nearly every country in the world committed to something new called the Global Goals — like a to-do list … for the whole world!

More officially they’re called the Sustainable Development Goals .

Here are two videos about the specific goals.

The 17 goals aim to achieve three main things:

1. Make the world more safe and fair for everybody.

(This is a good  video by We The Economy  about some causes of income inequality, a little more complex so maybe for slightly older kids).

2. End extreme poverty. (These videos are by college students who decided to see what it’s like to live on only $1 a day, as about 1 billion people do, and made a film about it. It’s really well done).

3. Fix climate change.

(Here’s a slightly longer explanation by Bill Nye the Science Guy . And here’s a super-detailed interactive by Foreign Affairs .)

The aim is to achieve the goals (aka a better life and world for most everyone) … in 15 years! How old will you be then?

And the idea is that in order to succeed we all get involved and pitch in . How?

We don’t have to take on all of the world’s responsibilities ourselves, but if even one of the goals connected with you, and you can think of even a small way to help (one habit you can change, one act of kindness) it makes a difference. There are also some ideas here  and here .

Was there one goal that interested you more than the others? Which one?

It’s pretty ambitious to fix the world’s problems in 15 years, but it’s a good start!

To learn more, you can visit the Global Goals website here .

Educators, there are some great resources at  World’s Largest Lesson here and more teacher resources by the UN  here , and here  where you can watch videos about each issue.