Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Harvard Professor Samantha Power for a discussion of her new book, "Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World." The conversation focuses on the lessons of De Mello's life for understanding the challenges confronting world order in the 21st century. (56 minutes)

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Sadaka Ogata, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees for a discussion about humanitarian assistance. (38 min)

Former United Nations secretary General Sir Brian Urquhart in conversation with UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler looks back on his distinguished career as a soldier, diplomat, and international statesman. (57 min)

UC Berkeley's Harry Kreisler welcomes Sir Brian Urquhart for a discussion of the changing role of the United Nations in world affairs. (57 min)

A collection of UN sponsored micro-courses related directly to the SDGs. Search the catalog by type, SDG #, or country.

D-Lab Development addresses issues of technological improvements at the micro level for developing countries—in particular, how the quality of life of low-income households can be improved by adaptation of low cost and sustainable technologies. Discussion of development issues as well as project implementation challenges are addressed through lectures, case studies, guest speakers and laboratory exercises. Students form project teams to partner with mostly local level organizations in developing countries, and formulate plans for an IAP site visit. (Previous field sites include Ghana, Brazil, Honduras and India.) Project team meetings focus on developing specific projects and include cultural, social, political, environmental and economic overviews of the countries and localities to be visited as well as an introduction to the local languages.

 8th Grade Literacy Tutorial                                                                               Visual and Information Literacy: What roles do community and media play in times of crisis

Listen, watch, or read the text of the speech given by Eleanor Roosevelt on December 9, 1948 on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Climate change and environmental justice class activity. Designed for students to understand the justice issues surrounding climate change on a global and domestic level.

Today, over 115 million children have never set foot inside a school. The fact is that for children living in developing countries, the dream of a first day of school is yet to be realized. The daily realities of poverty, political instability, regional conflict, geography, and cultural or traditional values all play a role to varying degrees -- and the issue of gender disparity makes this fact even more staggering. Full and equal access to education (Article 26) as outlined in the 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' and 'The Convention on the Rights of the Child' (Articles 2,3,28, and 29), has clearly been out of the reach of poor children -- and even more so in the case of girls. Nearly two-thirds of children who are denied a primary education are girls. In the least developed countries, nearly twice as many adult women than men are illiterate. (Source: UNFPA http://www.unfpa.org/icpd/10/icpd_ed.htm) If you happen to be a female, you are less likely to have access to a quality primary education and beyond -- contributing to the feminization of global poverty. Yet, there is hope despite this current state of affairs. 189 nations have pledged to meet 8 major Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. In doing so, nations hope to improve the social and economic development of all peoples. Included in these goals are those that address education and gender disparity: MDG 2: Achieve universal and primary education. MDG 3: Promote gender equality and empower women. Through the activities outlined in this lesson, students will become familiar with the current barriers standing in the way of educational opportunity -- especially for girls. They will watch clips from the WIDE ANGLE film 'Time for School' (2003) to understand the sense of urgency surrounding this issue, the potential benefits that can result from educating girls, and the ways that local communities are trying to address these problems. Note: This lesson focuses on MDG 2 and MDG 3. An introduction to the overall goals of the Millennium Project should be presented prior to this particular lesson.

How does global warming affect humans? The Climate Change Webcast explores the causes and effects of climate change as students work together to create an international climate change proposal to present at the United Nations Climate Summit.

Lesson seeds are ideas for the standards that can be used to build a lesson.  Lesson seeds are not meant to be all-inclusive, nor are they substitutes for instruction.  This lesson seed provides a compelling question and a bank of sources to use to drive an inquiry based lesson or a potential Evidence Based Argument Set (EBAS).  When developing lessons from these seeds, teachers must consider the needs of all learners.  Once you have built your lesson from the lesson seed, teachers are encouraged to post the lesson that has emerged from this lesson seed and share with others. Compelling question: Does United States participation in the United Nations help it achieve its foreign policy goals? EL Modification: highlight important vocabulary, add images to improve text comprenesion; consider adapting content, process and/or product based on Can Do WIDA DescriptorsImage source: "United Nations HQ" by Dendodge from Wikimedia.org

This course examines the interconnections of international politics and climate change. Beginning with an analysis of the strategic and environmental legacies of the 20th Century, it explores the politicization of the natural environment, the role of science in this process, and the gradual shifts in political concerns to incorporate "nature". Two general thrusts of climate-politics connections are pursued, namely those related to (a) conflict - focusing on threats to security due to environmental dislocations and (b) cooperation - focusing on the politics of international treaties that have contributed to emergent processes for global accord in response to evidence of climate change. The course concludes by addressing the question of: "What Next?

At age twenty-seven, physicist Philip Morrison joined the Manhattan Project, the code name given to the U.S. government's covert effort at Los Alamos to develop the first nuclear weapon. The Manhattan Project was also the most expensive single program ever financed by public funds. In this video segment, Morrison describes the charismatic leadership of his mentor, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and the urgency of their mission to manufacture a weapon 'which if we didn't make first would lead to the loss of the war." In the interview Morrison conducted for War and Peace in the Nuclear Age: 'Dawn,' he describes the remote, inaccessible setting of the laboratory that operated in extreme secrecy. It was this physical isolation, he maintains, that allowed scientists extraordinary freedom to exchange ideas with fellow physicists. Morrison also reflects on his wartime fears. Germany had many of the greatest minds in physics and engineering, which created tremendous anxiety among Allied scientists that it would win the atomic race and the war, and Morrison recalls the elaborate schemes he devised to determine that country's atomic progress. At the time that he was helping assemble the world's first atomic bomb, Morrison believed that nuclear weapons 'could be made part of the construction of the peace.' A month after the war, he toured Hiroshima, and for several years thereafter he testified, became a public spokesman, and lobbied for international nuclear cooperation. After leaving Los Alamos, Morrison returned to academia. For the rest of his life he was a forceful voice against nuclear weapons.

Introducing Africa is comprised of two lessons and is designed to raise studentsĚ_Ě_´ awareness about stereotypes of Africa; teach them information about the history, geography, economics and cultures of Africa; and to give them an appreciation for the diversity of the African continent. This kit will teach students to identify important details, make logical inferences, and draw informed conclusions from visual documents including photographs and money. The lesson was designed for third grade but can be used with older students.

These three laboratory activities build student knowledge of anthropogenic global climate change through use of the Columbia University-National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Educational Global Climate Model (EdGCM). They are designed to build student proficiency with each of the major steps used in a climate modeling experiment. The goal is to build student climate modeling skills and knowledge of climate models to enable students to conduct their own climate change research using EdGCM.

Key Questions:
How do scientists research the impact of humans on the global climate?
How does global climate modeling differ from and rely upon the work of other physical scientists?
In what ways can the methods of climate science help us understand how our own lives impact the global environment?
What limitations does global climate modeling hold as a research tool for understanding and predicting anthropogenic global climate change?

A unique perspective on the confluence of the three basic conceptual frameworks in human experience. Contains several studies, with data, of remarkable world views of disparate cultures based on their specific cultures language. The premise is that how people experience the world, then think about it, then create a language around it, alters their perception of the world in very fundamental ways. The radical notion is that thought and language, creates the circumstances of, and contribute to significantly different realities for different peoples.

The internalization and realization of this concept is significant and can possibly radically alter and change how different cultures assess their ability to, at the most basic levels, understand other cultures realities.

The summary booklet presents ideas to inspire the work of all parts of governments and societies in the quest for inclusive and sustainable development.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In 2015, the United Nations laid out 17 Sustainable Development Goals for the world. The goals aim to improve the lives of millions through actions such as ending poverty, protecting the planet, and assuring prosperity for all. Their success, however, depends on whether leaders can effectively mobilize to meet them. A team of researchers argues that this mobilization is unlikely without greater focus on implementing the goals in an integrated way. Finding connections among means of implementation, they say, will avoid wasted efforts and maximize efficiency. One of the biggest risks in overlooking these connections is contradictory efforts. Boosting industrial output, for example, could reduce the availability of clean drinking water. In this case, working towards one goal makes it harder to meet another. By understanding these connections between goals, however, leaders can tackle one target in a way that benefits many others..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This assignment provides students a storytelling structure that allows for their own voice and creativity to be applied. This is accomplished through the selection of an audience for a recorded voicemail and the climate science/societal issues of meaning to them from a United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) event.