TMC8 Aston

Bring Us Together: The Sustainable Development Goals in the SLLC

by Jennifer Aston


Now more than ever, it's crucial for teacher-librarians to take the lead in championing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in our schools, placing the SDGs at the heart of everything we do in our school library learning commons. In this paper, Jennifer Aston aims to show how our work as librarians in school libraries is directly linked to these goals. But it's not enough to stop there—we must also integrate the SDGs into our partnerships, technology usage, and even the displays and upkeep of our collections. To illustrate this, Jennifer has included insights from students gathered through a recent survey. Their perspectives offer valuable guidance for us.

Jennifer Aston (OCT BA BEd) is the teacher-librarian at West Oaks French Immersion Public School in London, Ontario, at the Thames Valley District School Board. She is the mother of three girls, an e-biker and married to a fellow beekeeper. She is a techie and a tinker who enjoys making small stained glass pieces. She has participated in the Forest of Reading Selection Committee and serves on the OLA Climate Action Committee. She has written blogs featured on “The Best of Ontario Educators” and has helped create lessons for a few organizations, including TVO Learn.


Read the paper

1 comment:

  1. MZMollyTLJanuary 15, 2025 at 10:32 PM

    Jennifer - it makes my heart happy to see this paper here, shared with a wider audience (as a topic of importance like this deserves)!

    I actually went back and re-read both your paper (and my initial thoughts) and it's even better the second time around! I have new questions.

    - with the books in the SDG bins, how do the students locate them if they aren't labelled or noted as such in the cataloging? (You mention later in the paper, around page 6, that you have no control over SORA, so this can be difficult. I loved your student suggestions; have you figured out how to address this?)

    - the Grade 8 teacher at my school does a lot of social justice and passion projects with the students. Often, they are most attracted to doing work on gender equality, similar to the Grade 7-8s you work with. Why is this such a popular choice? Do you have theories?

    - re: the graphs, I paid close attention to the blue section, the "I don't know what this is", and for many of the tall ones, I had to agree that I'd struggle to define it clearly. I agree with you that digging into it and examining division responses would be quite illuminating

    - on page 10, you suggest we should contribute to IFLA's ambitious aim to educate students about SDGs. As to how, you mention ". A link is provided to submit items, encouraging our active participation in our shared goals" as well as "Moreover, they offer an open-sourced map to which we can all contribute, empowering us to make a difference." Do you have suggestions on good initial first steps? You and your school are so much further along in this process.

    Thank you for all your work in this area!
    Diana

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