Last week Vienna International School celebrated two important events: 30 years from signing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and joining many schools around the world to engage in Global Action Day.
The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Agenda, adopted in 2015, includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to be achieved by 2030. Countries around the world have committed to taking action to meet these goals, such as ending poverty, hunger, sustainable communities, and making health care available to all. Vienna International School joined this important mission in 2017 by committing to provide an education for sustainable development to our students in their journey to become responsible global citizens that adapt their lifestyles and way of thinking towards a sustainable planet.
Through education for sustainable development, we teach students about the world and encourage them to become active participants of their communities. Learning about the UN goals helps students develop insights into issues around the world and understand the unique challenges facing communities all over the world, and later figure out how they can contribute towards making the world a better place. By learning about the Sustainable Development Goals, we believe that students and teachers will be inspired to take action and make positive changes, in big and small ways; we are already fortunate to see that every day at school, from high school students raising awareness about climate change to first graders conserving water or planting lavender to encourage pollination. Students in any grade level can learn about the SDGs in age-appropriate ways through classroom activities and later apply the learning in ways they feel personally meaningful.
The VIS Global Action Day was a special event for raising awareness and inspiring action towards making a better environment for all. The event came as a celebration of the learning happening across the school around the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in the area of our environment. When coming to school in the morning, the community was welcomed with a very special treat. The Ambassador of Slovenia (Mag. Ksenija Skrilec) and her staff hosted the European Honey Breakfast, an event to raise awareness about the importance of a healthy breakfast for children. As part of the event, staff, students and parents received an apple, honey sandwiches and delicious potica - the traditional Slovenian cake while listening to the talented Primary School Orchestra. Throughout the school day, the students took part in The World’s Largest Lesson and took time to inquire into each of the SDGs to build their knowledge of the goal, the related issues associated with it, and ways they could take action in their own lives to help achieve that goal. Following the Global Action Day, the Grade 5 students staged a series of dramatic climate action displays, to create a variety of riveting theatrical scenes raising our collective awareness of how climate change will impact our world and inspiring an urgent call to act.
Congratulations to the Green Teams of students, teachers and parents for putting together this big event to take the school community in a journey from awareness to consciousness about the SDGs and for their endless endeavours towards a more peaceful, healthy and equitable world.
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