Professor Donna Pendergast (School of Education and Professional Studies) and Professor Greer Johnson (Griffith Institute for Educational Research) invites you to attend this special presentation which will commence with a light lunch.
Please share this invitation with others you think may be interested to attend. Just let us know so we can cater for everyone.
Monday 30th July
12pm Luncheon 12.30 – 2 pm Presentation
Gold Coast G05_3.18; Mount Gravatt M10_5.04
RSVP: [email protected]
On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit – officially came into force. Over the next fifteen years, with these new Goals that universally apply to all, countries will mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind.
Australia’s just-released National Voluntary Review on the Sustainable Development Goals to the United Nations notes that “Many Australian schools and universities have implemented sustainability programs to teach children and young people about resource sustainability and to improve resource management within their institutions”.
The Agenda links directly into the sustainability cross-curriculum priority of the Australian curriculum and provides a clear framework for addressing global issues, both literally and pedagogically.
The presentation will look at the genesis of the Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals, review the Agenda, with specific focus on the Goals and how they create a transformational path towards a better world for all. The aim of the presentation will be to provide the audience with a better understanding of the Sustainable Development Agenda and how it can act as a framework for bringing in diverse learning areas which have a potential to contribute to the sustainability cross-curriculum priority.
Mr Christopher Woodthorpe
Mr. Christopher Woodthorpe is Director of the United Nations Information Centre (UNIC), Canberra. UNIC Canberra covers, Australia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
In this role Mr. Woodthorpe acts as the representative of the Secretary-General and coordinates the Organization’s communications outreach in the region. He joined the United Nations in 1989 as Chief of the Sales and Marketing Section, Department of Public Information, where he was responsible for management of the UN’s publications sales offices in New York and Geneva, including editorial and sales offices, and the External Publications Office.
During this period he also served as Chair of the Electronic Publishing Working Group and was the Focal Point for coordinating the Department’s relocation following renovation of the United Nations complex. Mr. Woodthorpe was educated in the United Kingdom, where he attended Marlborough College and obtained a Master of Arts degree in Geography from Cambridge University. He was born in 1958, is married and has three children. He has an active interest in a number of sports as well as local history.
