UN SDGs: Making Connections to SDG #6

LEARNING OBJECTIVE:

● Understand what the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

are and why they are important.
● Understand how the UN SDGs connect to one another.
● Understand how the UN SDGs connect to Goal #6: Clean Water and
Sanitation.
● Work in groups to critically discuss priorities of goals.
● Learn how to take action to achieve goals.

TIME NEEDED: 45 minutes - 1.25 hours

MATERIALS: ADDITIONAL
● UN SDG Cards for Activity/Discussion: Canva Link RESOURCES:
(Recommended for making a copy to edit) | PDF Link
UN SDG Website
● Presentation Slides with Presenter Notes: Canva Link
(Recommended for highest quality images) | Google Slides Link
Book this presentation to be
| PowerPoint Download Link | PDF Link
done by an H2O for Life staff
● Supplemental Worksheet: Canva Link (Recommended for member at the link here.
editing questions or format) | PDF Link)
● Select H2O for Life Service Project: Explore Projects Page Link
● H2O for Life Getting Started Materials: Getting Started Page

BACKGROUND:
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared
blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. At its heart are the 17 Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs), which are an urgent call for action by all countries - developed and developing - in a global
partnership. They recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve
health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve
our oceans and forests.

Of these 17 goals, Goal #6 is Clean Water and Sanitation. Ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and
sanitation for all people. None of the goals are more important than the others, but some may need to be completed before
others to ensure they can all be achieved. Foundational to life on earth as we know it is water. Of the 17 goals, water is the most
directly connected to each of the other goals. The connection may not be obvious at first glance, but through some discussion
with your class, you will discover a lot of different ways water impact the other goals and vice versa. Maybe even in ways not
outlined in the lesson presentation!
 ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:
● What is the United Nations (UN)?
● What are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?
● What goal do you think is most important?
● How do the goals connect to Goal #6: Clean Water and Sanitation?
● Are these goals all connected?
● Other supplemental questions for goals are in the presenter notes of the slides.

ENGAGE:
This lesson is meant to be a classroom based discussion. Using the provided presentation, introduce your students to
the United Nations and the Sustainable Development Goals. Once the SDGs have been introduced, pass out the
provided cut out cards of the SDGs to your students, one for each student. Leave recommend leaving out SDG #6, #17,
and the Goals Card (we provide them in case you want to use them for another lesson). Put students in groups of 3-5,
ideally with no one who has the same goal. Then have them first discuss: who has the most important goal in their
group and why? This is often a deep discussion with students. Afterwards they will be asked to share who had the most
important goal at their table. More than one student may want to share as it is a hard conclusion.

Next, they will be reintroduced to goal #6 and be asked “does your specific goal connect to Goal #6 or not, if so, how?”
Often there are students who don’t think that their goals connect. Those student will be asked after their discussion to
raise their hand to share if they believe their goal has nothing to do with water.

Share with your students that each goal is indeed directly connected to water. Throughout the rest of the provided
slides, students will be reintroduced to the other goals one-by-one and asked as a whole class to share what they think
the connection is with each goal. We provided at least one example with each goal. Your students may come up with a
lot of ideas not supported in the slides. We encourage you to edit the slides to better fit your classroom needs. There is
an optional supplemental worksheet for you to use if you would like students to write down their connections.

A common alternative for classrooms that are more energetic is to do this activity as a gallery walk. Put each SDG card
at a table or print out larger papers of each and hang them on the wall. Give students sticky notes to write their ideas for
what the connections are at each gallery station. Share the ideas as you walk through the goals.

ENRICH:
H2O for Life is a two-part program. The first is educational materials such as these, but the second part is a service learning
project where students raise funds for water and sanitation projects around the world. If you and your students want to apply
what they are learning to a real-world project, they can select a school to support from our website. They won’t be just learning
about an issue, but taking action to solve it!