Activity 01
Policy Design Workshop: Green Growth or Degrowth?
Groups are assigned one of three frameworks: green growth, degrowth, or steady-state economics. Each group reads a short explainer, then designs a policy package for a fictional middle-income country, specifying three concrete policies and the trade-offs each involves. Groups present to the class and field questions from peers assigned opposing frameworks.
Explain the concept of 'green growth' and its feasibility.
Facilitation TipDuring the Policy Design Workshop, circulate and listen for students making explicit connections between their policy choices and the core tension between economic growth and environmental limits.
What to look forFacilitate a Socratic seminar using the prompt: 'Given the current trajectory of global consumption and emissions, is 'green growth' a realistic solution for achieving sustainable development, or are more radical approaches like degrowth necessary? Justify your position with specific economic and environmental data.' Allow students to respond to each other's arguments.
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Activity 02
Case Analysis: Contrasting Development Paths
Students compare two countries with contrasting development and environmental profiles: one that has maintained high human development with relatively low carbon intensity, and one facing acute climate vulnerability despite minimal historical emissions. In pairs, they identify what each case reveals about the development-sustainability relationship, then argue whether high-income countries bear special obligations to finance climate adaptation.
Analyze the trade-offs between economic development and environmental protection.
Facilitation TipFor the Case Analysis, provide sentence starters on the board (e.g., 'This country’s choice prioritizes X, which creates trade-offs with Y...') to help students structure their comparisons.
What to look forPresent students with a scenario: A developing nation seeks to industrialize rapidly to lift its population out of poverty, but doing so will significantly increase its carbon emissions. Ask students to write down two policy recommendations for this nation, explaining the potential economic benefits and environmental drawbacks of each. Collect responses to gauge understanding of trade-offs.
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Activity 03
Gallery Walk: SDG Trade-offs
Post six stations around the room, each featuring a Sustainable Development Goal with a concrete example of how pursuing it conflicts with another goal (e.g., SDG 8 economic growth vs. SDG 13 climate action). Students annotate each station with a policy that could reduce the tension, then the class discusses which trade-offs are most acute and hardest to resolve.
Design policy frameworks for promoting sustainable development globally.
Facilitation TipIn the Gallery Walk, place a small blank sticky note at each station so students can post questions that arise during their analysis of SDG trade-offs.
What to look forOn a small card, ask students to define 'Planetary Boundaries' in their own words and then list one specific policy instrument (e.g., CBAM, carbon tax, international aid) that could help a country stay within these boundaries. This checks comprehension of key concepts and policy tools.
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Activity 04
Think-Pair-Share: Environmental Standards in Developing Countries
Students respond individually to this question in writing, citing at least one economic efficiency argument and one equity argument. They compare reasoning with a partner, then pairs share their most interesting point of disagreement with the class. The teacher closes by mapping student positions to actual international negotiating stances in climate diplomacy.
Explain the concept of 'green growth' and its feasibility.
Facilitation TipFor the Think-Pair-Share, assign roles (e.g., 'environmental advocate,' 'economic developer,' 'neutral mediator') to ensure balanced participation.
What to look forFacilitate a Socratic seminar using the prompt: 'Given the current trajectory of global consumption and emissions, is 'green growth' a realistic solution for achieving sustainable development, or are more radical approaches like degrowth necessary? Justify your position with specific economic and environmental data.' Allow students to respond to each other's arguments.
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Generate Complete Lesson→A few notes on teaching this unit
Teachers should approach this topic by emphasizing uncertainty and contested evidence rather than presenting sustainability as a fixed set of solutions. Research suggests that students grasp complex systems better when they engage with primary data, policy documents, and case studies that reveal contradictions. Avoid framing the topic as a moral dilemma—students need to see that sustainable development involves technical, economic, and political considerations, not just ethical choices.
Successful learning looks like students confidently articulating policy trade-offs, using evidence to critique competing theories, and recognizing that sustainable development is not a single solution but a set of context-dependent strategies. They should leave able to explain why green growth and degrowth arguments both have merit depending on the scenario.
Watch Out for These Misconceptions
During the Policy Design Workshop, watch for students assuming that economic growth and environmental protection are always in conflict. Some may default to a false dichotomy without examining data on decoupling or the Environmental Kuznets Curve.
Use the Policy Design Workshop to have students test their assumptions by requiring them to justify their policy choices with real-world data on emissions per capita or GDP growth rates. Ask groups to present one piece of evidence that challenges their initial assumption.
During the Case Analysis: Contrasting Development Paths, students may argue that developing countries should accept lower environmental standards because rich countries industrialized without restrictions.
Use the case studies to highlight how developing countries now have access to renewable technologies and green finance. Ask students to compare the cost of solar energy today to fossil fuel energy in the 1970s, and discuss what this means for the equity debate.
During the Gallery Walk: SDG Trade-offs, students might believe the UN Sustainable Development Goals are a binding international agreement with enforcement mechanisms.
Use the SDG posters in the Gallery Walk to point out the voluntary nature of the goals and the lack of enforcement. Ask students to brainstorm what types of incentives or penalties could make the SDGs more effective, tying this to the policy instruments they learned about in earlier activities.
Methods used in this brief