Hunger is an alarm signal sent by the body when the stomach is empty and the blood sugar level decreases. Malnutrition occurs when the body adapts to the prolonged absence of food, losing weight and functioning more slowly.
Globally, 795 million people remain undernourished, a figure that is expected to increase by an additional 2 billion by the year 2050. Worldwide, the vast majority of people suffering from hunger live in developing countries, where 12.9 % of the population is undernourished.
Why Education is crucial to achieving SDG-2
Education is key to acquire the necessary knowledge to increase agricultural production and the income of small farmers, especially women and indigenous peoples, while respecting the environment, the biodiversity and the resources of each region. Correct and up-to-date knowledge also helps to prevent problems potentially causing famines, such as drought, floods, and other disasters. (Access to Learning objectives for SDG-2)
At this level, learners get acquainted with the tastes and textures of different foods. They develop the required abilities to identify healthier food options such as fruits and vegetables, thus making healthier choices, and allowing them to serve as role models within their schools and their surrounding communities later in life. (Access Educational materials here)
Through gardening activities, combined with eating food they produce themselves, learners at this level develop healthy dietary practices. They also develop the required ability to read and interpret labels, ingredients' lists and health labels. Furthermore, they learn to appreciate indigenous and local perspectives on ways of living together and using existing resources in a sustainable manner. (Access Educational materials here)
Food and nutrition sciences teach learners at this level how to identify the ways in which physical factors such as geographical location, growing seasons or food markets influence good food choices. Subsequently, they learn to plan menus and select and prepare foods, taking into consideration economic, geographical and seasonal factors that affect the availability of ingredients, thus becoming conscious citizens who reduce food waste and loss. (Access Educational materials here)
Pedagogical Resources
- A Day In The Life Of Alvaro Pop (Cocoa Producer From Belize) - This is part of a comprehensive teaching resource, which supports teachers at EYFS and KS1 (ages 3-8) to introduce global learning through the themes of interconnectedness, fairness and sustainability.
- Making It Count - Based on the educational and psychological research reviewed in this report, key objectives are proposed for planning or evaluating educational programmes designed at achieving behaviour change.
Ideas for Classroom Activities
- My Breakfast, Your Breakfast - This resource explores access to food and global inequality. Learners discuss eating habits, the similarities and differences between children in other countries and why not all children have equal access to food.
- Find Your Way Through Trade - These lesson plans explain the basic principles of global trade starting with everyday items from the supermarket, where items come from, how they reach us, the supply chain and global trade.
- Our Food, Our World - This set of lesson plans looks at foods from around the world and builds understanding of other children's cultures and lives.
Multimedia Educational Resources
- A Day In The Life Of A Honeymaker - “A Day in the Life of a Honeymaker” is a beautiful animated film that follows Dominique, who is a beekeeper and honeymaker
- Australian Food – What Do Australians Eat - A personal memory of Australian food & cuisine
- Adula – The Granary Song From Uganda - A great, fun children's song from the Teso people of Uganda is sung to warn young people against stealing grain or groundnuts (peanuts) from the granary. Helen from Uganda teaches children how to sing this simple song with words on screen.
Pedagogical Resources
- Night Stars - A comic adventure to support Sustainable Development Goal 2 – Zero Hunger
- Rise Of The Plate PioneerZ - A comic adventure to support Sustainable Development Goal 2 and 3
- Bush Telegraph - It's More Than Just Food - This resource explores the issues and reasons why our global food system is not currently sustainable.
Ideas for Classroom Activities
- Introducing The Plate PioneerZ - How and why does eating healthily affect the outcome of the Global Goals?
- Every Plate Tells A Story - This resource helps students understand how the Global Goals were created and are to be achieved by 2030 and evaluates a representative meal and identifies alternatives that support the Global Goals.
Multimedia Educational Resources
- Food And The SDGs - To celebrate the World’s Largest Lesson in 2017, children think about how their food choices impact the SDGs and pledge to make changes from healthy eating to reducing wastage and sourcing closer to home.
- Food Security, Climate Change And The Philippines - This video follows Marie and Roberto to explore the impacts of climate change on food security for people living in developing countries, like The Philippines.
- Food And Human Well-being - Video comparing the Food Security situation in Bali and Sumba
Get Inspired
- Equal Nutritious Breakfast- Maliyadeva College - Page 95 - This project utilizes “sustainable production and consumption” as we use locally produced grains, vegetables, and greens so that area farmers earn more income. With respect to the preservation of natural resources, we use environmentally friendly and reusable coconut shells found in nature. The students showed remarkable improvement in learning. The teachers were positively impacted by this project as well, as they also could have breakfast. The school principal has been very happy to devote his time to this project. In addition, the local community members are very happy to hear and notice their children’s progress. Shop keepers and farmers can also earn extra profit from this project. As for families, they also benefit because they spend less money, and their children are able to eat in the morning even though they leave home with empty stomachs, as most of them commute from faraway places.
Pedagogical Resources
- Zero Hunger: Why It Matters - Technical Note presenting SDG 2, and asking why, with enough food to feed everyone on the planet, there are so many hungry people and how much will it cost to achieve zero hunger.
- Teaching And Learning For A Sustainable Future - Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future is a UNESCO programme for the UN Decade of ESD with professional development for teachers, curriculum developers, education policy-makers, and authors of educational materials.
- Community Seed Banks - This module provides Junior Farmer Field and Life Schools facilitators with information to discuss community seed banks, food security, agro-biodiversity and sustainable agriculture through discussion, roleplays and case studies.
Ideas for Classroom Activities
- Food Innovations - Investigations In Science - An extension of the “Every Plate Tells A Story” lesson plan which stimulates students to develop observations, questions and opinions about the feasibility of urban farming, through a scientific inquiry and writing exercises.
- Food Tales - Investigating Climate Change Through Literacy, English Language Arts - An extension to the “Every Plate Tells A Story” which helps students discover how everyday food choices can change our carbon footprint and affect the environment and global warming.
Multimedia Educational Resources
- The Zero Hunger Challenge - This is a motion graphic by the UN Expo Team at Expo Milano 2015, on a key UN issue, ‘The Zero Hunger Challenge. United for a sustainable world'.
- SDG 2 – Zero Hunger - End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
- Achieving Zero Hunger - Advocacy for combining social protection with pro-poor investments.
Get Inspired
- From the farmer’s field to our dishes, Bio-food versus junk food- SEMEP Good Practices: Bridging Cultures through Science for a Sustainable Environment - GREECE- Page 22 Two collaborating teams of students were established to carry out interdisciplinary teamwork concerning the Mediterranean diet and its benefits for human health and the environment. An investigative project was launched to assess the value of a Mediterranean diet in contrast to a diet of junk food. Some of the objectives were to establish a scientific methodology to investigate the nutritional habits of young people and adults, to investigate the effects of diet on health as well as on the environment, and to investigate what we should eat in order to live in a sustainable way.
