Objective:
Game Changer is a two-day design thinking sprint, themed on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Students are put into teams of between 3 – 5 people and are given a challenge, based on one or more of the SDGs. They then use the design thinking methodology of understanding the problem, moving through to generating innovative solutions to the challenge. They then present back, with the chance to win a share of a monetary prize fund. During this process students:
- Explore a global problem highlighted by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and understand its impact
- Learn about, and use, Design Thinking methods to generate innovative ideas and solutions
- Create a plan to implement your ideas
- Develop your communication and pitching skills
Sustainability Mindset Principal Themes addressed:
ECOLOGICAL WORLDVIEW
Eco literacy
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Creative Innovation
Enterprise Educator Framework addressed:
- Developing an Enterprising and Entrepreneurial Mindset
- Developing their skills and competencies associated with being enterprising and entrepreneurial
Activity:
Day 1:
- Team formation & ice breaker
- Setting the challenge (a How Might We… question that you set for the students)
- Setting out the sprint structure – empathy/ ideate/ present
- Research time
- Break (beer/pizza!)
- Ideation
- Narrowing down and choosing an idea
Day 2:
- Storyboarding ideas
- Lean Canvas introduction
- Lunch
- Pitch preparation & practice
- Break
- Pitching & judging – choose a winner
- Feedback to all teams on their ideas and pitches
- Celebration
Challenge examples:
How Might We motivate individuals & communities to make small changes to have big impact on climate change SDGS: 13
How Might We achieve more sustainable tourism SDGS: 8, 12, 14
How Might We improve health in everyday life? SDGS: 3, 10, 11
Skill Development:
UNESCO Sustainability competencies covered using this tool.
Cognitive/ Thinking competency
- Anticipatory competency: the ability to understand and evaluate multiple futures – possible, probable, and desirable – and to create one’s own visions for the future, to apply the precautionary principle, to assess the consequences of actions, and to deal with risks and changes.
- Critical thinking competency: the ability to question norms, practices, and opinions; reflect on own one’s values, perceptions and actions; and take a position in the sustainability discourse.
- Systems thinking competency: the ability to recognize and understand relationships, to analyse complex systems, to perceive the ways in which systems are embedded within different domains and different scales, and to deal with uncertainty.
Behavioural/ Ways of Doing competency
- Strategic competency: the ability to collectively develop and implement innovative actions that further sustainability at the local level and further afield.
- Collaboration competency: the ability to learn from others; understand and respect the needs, perspectives, and actions of others (empathy); understand, relate to and be sensitive to others (empathic leadership), deal with conflicts in a group; and facilitate collaborative and participatory problem-solving.
- Integrated problem-solving competency: the overarching ability to apply different problem-solving frameworks to complex sustainability problems and develop viable, inclusive, and equitable solution that promote sustainable development – integrating the above-mentioned competencies.
Socio-emotional/ Ways of Being competency
- Self-awareness competency: the ability to reflect on one’s own role in the local community and (global) society, continually evaluate and further motivate one’s actions, and deal with one’s feelings and desires.
- Normative competency: the ability to understand and reflect on the norms and values that underlie one’s actions and to negotiate sustainability values, principles, goals and targets, in a context of conflicts of interests and trade-offs, uncertain knowledge and contradictions.
UNESCO Sustainability competencies please delete those that are not aligned with this activity.
Resources:
Durham University Game Changer Toolkit – available on request