Visual Displays of the Sustainable Development Goals …
231
During Global Week, a festival that celebrates the multinational community of
the four NTU campuses, the Green Academy carried out 127 mixed methods questionnaires with students from a variety of different disciplines across each of the
campuses. The aim of this questionnaire was to gauge student’s current knowledge
of the SDGs, showing that 43% of NTU students know about the global goals.
Demonstrating that the Curriculum Refresh process has started to have an impact,
with 41% of these students seeing the SDGs directly embedded into their courses.
The results also revealed other awareness activities where students have seen the
global goals, with 47% saying that they have seen them at NTU events, highlighting
the importance of extra-curricular activities. Students had also seen the SDGs on
NTU social media, during the NTU’s Sustainability in Practice online course and
externally to NTU. However, these questionnaires also revealed that there is still a
way to go in raising awareness of the SDGs at NTU with 57% of students having
never heard about them. The results further highlight the importance of using a mixed
methods approach to raise awareness of the SDGs.
It is no surprise that our results show that diverse methods are the best way to
teach the global goals, in relation to Education for Sustainability, Sterling (2012, p.37)
emphasises that ‘learning methods and approaches need to be more open-ended, participative, diverse and interactive than is often the case in academic teaching’. The
development of the visual displays project not only aims to further raise awareness
of the SDGs at NTU but also looks at how to encourage, motivate, and facilitate students and staff behaviour to think about how they can contribute to meeting the SDGs
underlying targets. Engaging both staff and students to participate in the development phases of the visual displays projects, as co-partners, in creating the sustainable
University of the Future (Nottingham Trent University 2015), whilst also recognising
the importance of making them interactive as possible.
4 Supporting Research for Visual Communication of SDGs
During the development of the visual displays project, the engagement activities were
based on current research to build a strategy of communication. By raising awareness
and working towards the global goals, it is hoped that students and staff will be more
engaged and active citizens in contributing to sustainable development. Godemann
and Michelsen (2011) posit that it is not enough to raise awareness of the sustainability
concept, but people also need to be mobilised through knowledge linked with a direct
experience that has meaning and encourages an emotional response, which can also
have a practical value; for which the SDGs mostly fit the description and give goals
that staff and students can work towards.
231
During Global Week, a festival that celebrates the multinational community of
the four NTU campuses, the Green Academy carried out 127 mixed methods questionnaires with students from a variety of different disciplines across each of the
campuses. The aim of this questionnaire was to gauge student’s current knowledge
of the SDGs, showing that 43% of NTU students know about the global goals.
Demonstrating that the Curriculum Refresh process has started to have an impact,
with 41% of these students seeing the SDGs directly embedded into their courses.
The results also revealed other awareness activities where students have seen the
global goals, with 47% saying that they have seen them at NTU events, highlighting
the importance of extra-curricular activities. Students had also seen the SDGs on
NTU social media, during the NTU’s Sustainability in Practice online course and
externally to NTU. However, these questionnaires also revealed that there is still a
way to go in raising awareness of the SDGs at NTU with 57% of students having
never heard about them. The results further highlight the importance of using a mixed
methods approach to raise awareness of the SDGs.
It is no surprise that our results show that diverse methods are the best way to
teach the global goals, in relation to Education for Sustainability, Sterling (2012, p.37)
emphasises that ‘learning methods and approaches need to be more open-ended, participative, diverse and interactive than is often the case in academic teaching’. The
development of the visual displays project not only aims to further raise awareness
of the SDGs at NTU but also looks at how to encourage, motivate, and facilitate students and staff behaviour to think about how they can contribute to meeting the SDGs
underlying targets. Engaging both staff and students to participate in the development phases of the visual displays projects, as co-partners, in creating the sustainable
University of the Future (Nottingham Trent University 2015), whilst also recognising
the importance of making them interactive as possible.
4 Supporting Research for Visual Communication of SDGs
During the development of the visual displays project, the engagement activities were
based on current research to build a strategy of communication. By raising awareness
and working towards the global goals, it is hoped that students and staff will be more
engaged and active citizens in contributing to sustainable development. Godemann
and Michelsen (2011) posit that it is not enough to raise awareness of the sustainability
concept, but people also need to be mobilised through knowledge linked with a direct
experience that has meaning and encourages an emotional response, which can also
have a practical value; for which the SDGs mostly fit the description and give goals
that staff and students can work towards.