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The world today faces a number of challenges and in the hope of improving the lives of generations to come, it is vital these challenges are tackled urgently. The recently published ¹ú²úÂÒÂ× Sustainable Business Report aims to outline the key approaches to unlocking the potential of open science and research to accelerate solutions to the world’s most urgent challenges.

Introducing important topics like sustainability, and diversity and inclusion to students can be a challenge for teachers, especially when these topics are vital to creating a fairer and more sustainable future. In the first of a series of blogs, created to accompany the publication of ¹ú²úÂÒÂ×s’ Sustainable Business Report 2022, we’ll take a look at the Advancing Futures initiative, which aims to do just that.

What is Advancing Futures?

from Macmillan Education, aims to make the topics of global citizenship, sustainability, diversity, equity, and inclusion commonplace in classrooms around the world.

To do this, the programme provides teachers with a range of resources, including webinars, blogs, worksheets, and ready-made lesson plans, designed to equip them with the key skills to teach and inspire the next generation. 

Teachers can use the programme’s resources to get the tools, and confidence, to share knowledge, develop skills, and promote attitudes and actions on the topics above, with the ultimate goal of fulfilling Macmillan Education’s 180-year-old ambition: to support teachers to inspire the next generation and to use the power of education to have a positive impact on society.

How does it help teachers and students?

Macmillan Education built the Advancing Futures on four key pillars: Resources for Teachers, Change Makers for students, Content, and Commitment to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Now, let’s take a closer look at each pillar’s importance in helping both teachers and students alike.

• Resources for Teachers: In order to help teachers to introduce and engage their students with the key SDG themes of sustainability, diversity, equity, and inclusion, Advancing Futures provides practical ready-to-use classroom resources for all age groups. These carefully chosen lesson plans include videos, worksheets, and articles, with new material added every month. 
• Change Makers for Students: Change Makers is an exciting global collaborative initiative that invites students to create and share their ideas, dreams, and actions for the world they want to live in. Together these contributions will build Change Makers World, an open online space where learners of all levels and abilities will be able to share their vision, express their unique skills, and interact with, and learn from one another. 
• Content: Working closely with educators, students, and experts, the Macmillan Education team have developed a Global Citizenship Framework, consisting of three themes, which they use when developing ELT courses. 

1. Global Knowledge
2. Global Attitudes and Actions
3. Global Skills

Carefully adjusted to create measurable outcomes for different age groups, this unique framework helps teachers translate theory into practice. This, in turn, ensures that the content helps students develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills they need to make informed choices and take positive action toward a fairer, more sustainable world.

• Commitment: Educators are key to shaping young minds around the world to create a fairer, more inclusive, and sustainable vision for the future, and the Sustainable Development Goals are a blueprint for this vision.

The Advancing Futures programme is designed to take tangible steps towards advancing the SDGs, through: 

1. Embedding key themes from the goals into the educational content published.
2. Creating an ongoing conversation around the SDGs, engaging and incentivising the education community (teachers and students) to play an active role in building a more sustainable future. 

Giving educators the practical tools they need to integrate SDG topics into their everyday teaching practice.

About the Author

Ben Hunt: Previous to joining the Copywriting and Translations team at ¹ú²úÂÒÂ×, Ben marketed for the open access journal Scientific Reports, and before that worked in publishing within the media sector.