Learning Objectives

Students will understand the need for the Millennium Development Goals and the concepts of setting targets and planning objectives.

Teaching Process

1. As a group, consider the following questions:
• Have you ever set a goal for yourself?
• What made you think of the goal?
• Did you want to improve a skill or work toward something?
• How did you measure whether or not you met this goal?

• People make personal goals all the time. But, what about goals for a community?
• Who decides how a community should progress and improve?
• Who decides how to set goals to reach the desired result for the community?

2. For this exercise, ask students to imagine THEY are the person setting the goals for your community to be reached by the year 2015, using the following questions to brainstorm and reflect individually:
• How would you describe your community?
• What do you like most about your community? Least?
• What are your concerns for the local community? What problems do you see? List five to eight concerns.
• What goals could you set to lessen the impact of these problems or eliminate your concerns?

3. Once each student has reflected on these questions, share responses as a group, considering the following Discussion Questions:
• How is community defined?
• What are some of the shared concerns in our group? Shared goals?

Teachers Notes

For educators using a TIGed virtual classroom, discussion questions can be posted in the class discussion forum. You may also wish to ask students to submit their worksheet responses as a blog entry, to gather the entire group’s ideas.

This activity was developed as part of the Educator's Guide to the Millennium Development Goals, created by TakingITGlobal and the One World Youth Project.