At-home and at school learning resources from Learning for a Sustainable Future
Week 20: SDG #1 - No Poverty
This week's LIO is all about UN SDG #1: No Poverty. Eliminating poverty in all of its forms is one of the most vital and challenging steps needed to build a sustainable future for all. While there has been quite a bit of progress in tackling poverty around the world, far too many are still struggling for the most basic of human needs.

COVID-19 has exasperated this situation by threatening to push tens of millions of people back into extreme poverty, which the UN describes as people living on less than $1.90 a day, and would cause the first increase in global poverty in more than 20 years. Eliminating poverty in all its forms, establishing social protection systems, and securing equal rights to economic resources for men and women everywhere are all targets under this SDG that are vital to ensuring everyone in the world has a chance at a healthy, prosperous, and productive life!

The activities below introduce students to the concepts of social and economic inequalities, how poverty can impact our health and well being, and how we can all challenge our perspectives on poverty!
Grades K-4
Poverty and the associated impact on children's health are complex global issues that affect both developed and developing countries. Canadian citizens have access to universal health care, yet childhood obesity rates are climbing, and sports programs have become prohibitively expensive for many families. Scarce resources that limit food availability, potable water, and health care plague more impoverished areas of the world. This innovative lesson engages students in active exploration of the relationship between poverty and well-being.  


Activities
  • Read or listen to Maddi's Fridge; this picture book raises awareness about poverty and hunger
  • Play the Maddi's Fridge board game, which accompanies the picture book
  • Use the writing activities that accompany Maddi's Fridge so students can write about a time they helped someone or about a time someone helped them
  • Have students draw a picture of a fridge with three things they would like to find there. Discuss how their preferences compare with what is actually inside your fridge. Notice the variety of foods people like to eat
  • Discuss how students can help friends who have empty fridges. Make posters for a local food bank or organize a school-wide food drive with the students
  • Watch the Understanding Goal 1 video to learn more about SDG 1 No Poverty
  • Learn what you and your students can do to make a difference with Take Action Goal 1
  • Have students think of foods or snacks that are healthy and sound good to eat. Allow students to come up with creative names for their food. Create a class menu with everyone's healthy food suggestions
What did you think of A Healthy Start?
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The purpose of this resource is to enhance student's awareness of the many types of inequality that exist in the world. The activities introduce the students to the idea of social disparities and explore the consequences of these inequalities on society as a whole and the economy. Students will discuss the notion of inequality, answer questions, present a persuasive argument based on research, present the class with a form of inequality, present a day in a life of a person who experiences a disparity and create an "impact chain" based on the inequality.

Activities
  • Raise your students' awareness of the differences between developed and developing countries with Playing with Decimals, a lesson on the challenges of living on less than $2 per day
  • Have students participate in the Divided World, an awareness activity that allows students to discover how the world's food is divided globally and how this inequality impacts people's rights
  • Watch the What is Poverty? video and complete the worksheets to help students identify the different dimensions of poverty and recognize that it is much more than a low income
  • Two activities to learn more about poverty and unequal distribution
  • Find a Goal 1 charity you want to support. Any donation, big or small, can make a difference!
  • Here are some ideas of activities you can do to raise awareness about poverty at your school or in your community
  • Get outside and Play for Goal 1 with the Global Goals Impact Games
What did you think of The World is Not Equal. Is that Fair?
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Grades 7-12
One in Eight explores the importance of food and nutrition in the world, why it is a basic need as well as a human right, and how food waste is increasingly linked to hunger and what we can do about it. This resource seeks to engage some of the underlying ideas, values and causes that make world hunger such a pressing issue and one that can be solved within our lifetime.




Activities
  • Watch Understand Goal 1 to learn more about SDG 1: No Poverty
  • Learn what you can do to make a difference with Take Action Goal 1
  • Play The Biscuit Game, so students are aware of our unequal and imbalanced world both locally and globally (p.27-28)
  • The Maize Factor activity explores factors affecting people's ability to grow food and allows students to develop empathy with the injustice felt by small scale farmers (p.29-32)
  • Try the Can you Make the Month quiz to challenge your perspective on poverty. After participating in this simulation, answer the following questions: Did you make the month, or did you run out of money? How did you feel about not being able to afford things you wanted or needed? Was there a particular situation where you felt helpless? If so, what was it and why? What do you think people experiencing poverty do when they cannot meet their basic needs?
  • Research Canadian First Peoples and Poverty scroll to the bottom of the website to choose a research topic and offer solutions to tackle poverty in Indigenous communities in Canada
What did you think of One in Eight?
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About Learning Inside Out

Above you will find a selection of activities, broken down by various grade levels. These guides will be released weekly and archived on our Learning Inside Out page, so you can always access the full catalogue.

All activities have been modified from resources on our R4R database, simplified and adapted for both outdoor learning in the school yard or at-home as needed. The activity descriptions above should contain all the information and links that you need!

If you'd like to view the full original resource on R4R, including curriculum connections for every province/territory, click the activity title.

We want this guide to work for you, so your feedback is invaluable to us.
Use the feedback button at the bottom of this Guide, or email us at info@LSF-LST.ca. We would also love to see photos of students engaging in the activities, please e-mail us any pictures or videos you have!
Let us know how this helped your learning and teaching from home or at school indoors and (hopefully) outdoors and what you'd like to see more of by filling out our brief feedback form!
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Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) is a Canadian charity with over 25 years of experience working within the education system. Our Resources for Rethinking (R4R) database is an award-winning collection of resources that are peer-reviewed by certified teachers and connected to curriculum in all provinces and territories. R4R is recommended on many Ministry of Education websites.
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