Creating for Community Impact: SDGs, Design Challenges, and Emerging Tech

What does it look like when middle schoolers become designers who create for the greater good? This Mobile Mega Share explores four instructional units built around real design challenges that students have tackled using the UN Sustainable Development Goals as their compass. Each unit offers a different entry point into community-centered design, from game design for social change to assistive technology to AI-powered and physical computing solutions. See how micro:bit CreateAI, MicroCode, Forward Education's Coding for Good curriculum and Make:able with PrintLab come to life through student-directed learning grounded in Design Thinking, Project-Based Learning and the ISTE Standards for Students. Learn how to select and frame SDG-aligned challenges for your grade level and community, use these tools as low-barrier entry points, and scaffold design work so even replication becomes a pathway to innovation. Leave with replicable model lessons, a shared resource hub, a challenge sequencing framework and real student work for inspiration, all most applicable to grades 4-12 in STEM, library and technology settings.