Being able to research and gain knowledge about the United Nations and Sustainable Development Goals really got me to see the world from a new perspective. Exploring one specific goal let me figure out the importance of one topic at a time. I’ve begun to see ways that we can help, for example turning off lights when we leave a room, which helps because you aren’t wasting electricity (This helps Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy because they focus on saving energy). Something else that helps is writing something down instead of printing it out. This way, you aren’t wasting paper. (This helps Goal 15: Life on Land because they focus on protecting forests.). These are simple things that I started to pay more attention to, that I didn’t even realize could be helpful to the Sustainable Development Goals. Learning about these goals is important, because you can learn so much about the world, that you didn’t occur to you before. When we first started this project, we were asked the question, “How much impact do you think that you have on the world, as a 7th grade student?”. I didn’t think that we could really have any impact on the world because I thought that people only listen to adults, and there isn’t much that a 7th grader could do to help the planet. Now that I have spent my time doing all of this research, I’ve changed my answer. It doesn’t matter if we’re in 7th grade, we’re doing research and writing argument pieces to try to help the world. If we believe that we can do it, then we’re going to try our best until we’ve accomplished what we’ve been striving for. In the future, I can see myself continuing to learn about the United Nations and Sustainable Development Goals, and trying to discover more about the world, and how I can influence the world.
