The power of books. An approach to the sustainable development goals through a common reading experience

Resumen

With education as an essential tool to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), thiswork intends to approach the 17 SDGs to second-year students of the subject “Natural Sciences forTeachers” (Degree in Preschool and Primary School Education; Faculty of Teacher Training, Universityof Valencia, Spain) through the reading of the book “Encara no és tard, claus per a entendre i aturarel canvi climatic” [It is still not late, keys to understanding and preventing climate change] written byAndreu Escrivà.To ensure that students are effectively involved in achieving the SDGs, a methodology focusedon three learning dimensions was followed. On one hand, student-centred learning was promotedas the comprehensive reading of the book encourages students auto-reflection prompting theirevolution autonomously. On the other, action learning was carried out since students had to developthe book contents to tangible teaching proposals on the SDGs for preschool and primary school.The third dimension was a transformational learning approach through students questioning: adialogue-conference with the writer promoted academic debate and permitted an evolution of theirunderstanding and perception of the world where we live and the big challenges we are facingnowadays. A questionnaire was completed by pre-service students before and after the teachingsequence was carried out.With all, it is intended that students acquire knowledge, skills, values and attitudes related toclimate change and sustainable development. This work presents preliminary results of the wholeteaching sequence.