SDG Innovative Learning Summer Project（2017）in Beijing

Project Introduction

In September 2015, the United Nations(UN) committed to 17 sustainable development goals (or SDG). Governments will strive to achieve goals like eradicating absolute poverty, against inequality and responding to climate changes for the next 15 years. Thus, the youth should be able to play an active and meaningful role in tackling SDG. This project is co-organized by Tsinghua University and the University of Geneva, cooperated with University College of London, related organizations, and other related corporates and institutions, and devoted to exploring effective and practical crowd-sourcing sustainable development ways.

Project Content

Part 1

During the Geneva part of the SDG Summer School, the focus is on meeting with experts from the University of Geneva, the UN and other INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS to explore how various forms of open data and technologies could make a difference in tracking and tackling the SDGs. Based on expert guidance, students work in teams to conceive novel solutions, suitable for use by students and their teachers in middle and high school.

In Geneva

In HoChiMinh City

In New York

PART 2

During the SDG SUMMER PROJECT, which lasts four weeks, student teams develop their concept and design a prototype, while working in one of the laboratories of a recently established network called the UNITED LABS FOR THE GLOBAL GOALS. These labs each have their own area of expertise, and the location of each team will depend on the project’s specific needs.

PART 3

At the Tsinghua part of the School, students spend one week in BEIJING and one in SHENZHEN. They work with a range of low-cost consumer technologies and open source software tools in order to build their prototype, in close collaboration with Chinese middle and high school students. They learn about how their prototypes can be produced in China’s vibrant manufacturing hub Shenzhen, and present their final results to a panel of design, development and production experts.

On the sixth week of 2017 SDG summer school, students came to Tsinghua University, Beijing, spend 1 week on Tsinghua Lab for Lifelong Learning（TULLL）.

Welcomed by TULLL and relevant institutions representatives, students visited Tsinghua X-Lab, iCenter, Academy of Arts & Design，School of Environment and Tsinghua University Art Museum.

So far, the groups has

Group of Humanitarian Kit: the design of the product prototype has been completed, and the construction of the web site has been started;

Group of SDG Game: the SDG game is very popular with the early high school students.On next week students will add AR and other technologies to make the game more attractive;

Group of Smart Trash：the Smart Trash group successfully produced a garbage bucket model that can automatically scan and identify garbage classification;