Course Topic

        Since the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, humanity has been pursuing rapid economic growth and a better living condition, leading to the continuous depletion and even abuse of Earth’s resources. Highly developed industries require the burning of large amounts of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, which causes a rapid increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to higher levels of greenhouse gases, the main cause of global warming and climate change.

        Due to issues such as climate change, economic growth, social equality, and income inequality that affect the future safety and survival of the Earth, the United Nations formally released the “2030 Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) in 2015. The SDGs include 17 core goals, covering 169 sub-goals and 230 indicators, guiding global efforts towards sustainability.

        Simen Elementary School is located in the Anping coastal area, impacted heavily by climate change and rising sea levels. In response to the call and trend of global sustainable development, in addition to addressing climate change, we hope to lead students to think more deeply about the definition and role of sustainable new lifestyles. Continuing and expanding the “Smart Floating Island” curriculum of the past four years, Simen Elementary School will focus this year’s deep cultivation curriculum on the sea transportation framework between floating islands, with the school’s developed OP sailboat curriculum guiding students to think about how to build zero (low) carbon emission and pollution-free green transportation that can travel between islands. Guided by the design thinking model and echoing SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities and SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production, students will move towards an infinitely sustainable new life.

        Considering that the information application abilities of different countries vary, the international education curriculum design mainly presents the implementation results of each school through basic information abilities such as presentations and videos and does not require schools to integrate technology deeply. Instead, it focuses on international exchanges, with information application abilities as a supplement. However, the content of our school’s curriculum focuses on both international exchanges and technological implementation as demonstrations. For example, our school uses the theme of “Smart Floating Island” to lead students to design green transportation tools between floating islands to solve the problem of sea and land transportation. In the process, the maker concept is used to guide students to understand the SDGs of sustainable cities through Minecraft Education Edition and to use Makecode computational thinking to create their smart floating islands. In the middle of the process, Onshape 3D modeling, LEGO Spike Prime APP, and Arduino Blockly block programming are used to design models that demonstrate the environmental protection concept of intelligent green transportation. Given that the environmental issues faced by schools at home and abroad are not the same, the curriculum theme starts with the more universal issue of “environmental sustainability,” and participating teams use the design thinking process of empathy → definition → ideation → prototype → testing.