8 Creative Ways to Teach SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals

How can we make the world a better place by working together? From protecting the environment to improving education and fighting poverty, many global challenges require more than one person or organization to solve them. That’s where SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals comes in!

SDG 17 is all about bringing people, organizations, businesses, and governments together to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. It highlights the importance of international cooperation, sharing knowledge, technology, funding, and resources to tackle global challenges and create a more sustainable future for everyone.

💡 With BookWidgets, you can turn SDG 17 into interactive digital lessons students can complete individually, in pairs, or as part of a project. Use the lesson ideas below as templates you can adapt to your students and share through Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Canvas, Moodle, or another LMS. You can find them together in this free BookWidgets group on SDGs.

Be sure to check out our other SDG lesson resources below, where we share ready-to-use activities for teaching all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Ready-to-use BookWidgets lessons in this post

In this blog post, you’ll discover 8 engaging SDG 17 lesson plans that you can use in your classroom. These ready-to-use BookWidgets activities include interactive video quizzes, matching games, creative assignments, and a webquest that challenges students to find solutions to real-world problems. They’ll learn why partnerships matter, who can help solve different challenges, and how working together can make a difference.

1. Watch, Learn, and Explore SDG 17 with This Video Quiz — Students discover how countries and organizations work together, share resources, and build partnerships to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
2. Explore Global Partnerships with This Interactive Image — Students explore an interactive world map and discover how governments, businesses, organizations, and individuals contribute to global goals.
3. Find the Right Partners with This Matching Game — Primary students match real-world problems with the organizations, professionals, and services that can help solve them.
4. Discover the Power of Teamwork with This Story Worksheet — Students explore a story about people working together, sharing their skills, and combining resources to overcome a challenge.
5. Take on the Green Valley Mission and Find a Solution — Middle school students investigate a community challenge, research potential partners, and develop a realistic solution through a four-mission webquest.
6. Get Creative and Show the Power of Partnerships — Students express their ideas about global cooperation through drawing, painting, collage, or 3D artwork that shows how working together can create positive change.
7. Test Your Students' Knowledge with This Myth or Fact Quiz — Students test their knowledge of SDG 17, challenge common misconceptions, and discover why international cooperation matters.
8. Think you know the key terms? — Students review key vocabulary related to partnerships, cooperation, and the Sustainable Development Goals while solving an interactive crossword.

What is SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals?

The United Nations created 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to address global challenges and create a more sustainable future. SDG 17 focuses on strengthening partnerships between countries, governments, businesses, and organizations. By sharing knowledge, technology, funding, and resources, these partners can work together to achieve all 17 goals.

SDG 17 focuses on areas such as:

• Finance and financial support
• Technology and innovation
• Capacity-building
• International trade
• Policy and institutional coherence
• Multi-stakeholder partnerships
• Data, monitoring, and accountability

Review this checklist, which outlines all the target goals for SDG 17.

In the classroom, SDG 17 can be explained like this: SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals is a global goal that encourages countries, governments, businesses, and organizations to work together to achieve a better and more sustainable world. It promotes cooperation, sharing knowledge and resources, and building strong partnerships to tackle global challenges and achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Why Should Teachers Include SDG 17 in Their Lessons?

SDG 17 gives students the opportunity to discover how people and organizations can combine their strengths to tackle challenges that affect the world. It helps them see that problems such as poverty, unequal access to education, and environmental issues often require different people to work together. Teachers can encourage students to think about questions such as: Who can help solve a problem? What can different partners contribute? Why is cooperation important for creating lasting change?

It also encourages students to recognize that partnerships are not limited to governments and large organizations. Schools, local communities, and individuals can all play an important role in creating positive change by contributing their skills, knowledge, and resources.

SDG 17 can be explored in several school subjects:

• Social studies can introduce international cooperation and show how countries and organizations join forces to address global challenges.
• Geography can help students understand how countries depend on one another and how partnerships can improve living conditions around the world.
• Economics can explore how trade, funding, and shared resources support development and help countries work toward common goals.
• Citizenship education can encourage students to consider how governments, organizations, businesses, and individuals can contribute to positive change in their communities.
• Science and technology can highlight how sharing research, ideas, and technological solutions can help tackle challenges such as pollution and limited access to clean water.

BookWidgets offers different ways to turn these topics into active learning experiences. Students can discover how partnerships work through a video quiz, match problems with the people or organizations that can help, explore global cooperation using an interactive image, or investigate possible solutions in a webquest. Creative activities and knowledge-checking games can help them connect the idea of partnership to real-world situations.

8 Free and Interactive Lesson Ideas to Teach SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals

Discover 8 BookWidgets lesson ideas that help students explore SDG 17, understand global challenges, and learn how partnerships can make a difference. The digital activities can be adapted for various grade levels, subjects, and learning needs.

1. Discover SDG 17: The Power of Partnerships

Introducing a global goal can be easier when students can watch, listen, and interact as they learn. In this Video Quiz, students explore SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals and discover how countries, organizations, and communities can work together to address shared challenges.

Use this activity to introduce the topic before exploring specific examples of partnerships. As students answer questions throughout the video, they can build their understanding of how sharing knowledge, skills, and resources helps people work toward common goals. Afterward, invite them to think about a challenge in their own community and discuss who might be able to help solve it.

2. Connect the World Through Partnerships

Global partnerships can seem like a big and complicated idea. An interactive world map helps students see how cooperation happens in different places and why it matters. In this Hotspot Image activity, students explore different examples of people and organizations working together to support the Sustainable Development Goals.

Let students click the hotspots and discover the different contributions. Afterwards, ask them to compare the examples and discuss why one organization cannot solve every global challenge on its own. This is a great way to connect SDG 17 to real-world cooperation and help students understand how different contributions can lead to shared progress.

3. Who Can Help Solve the Problem?

Who would you call to help clean up a polluted river? And who could support a community that needs better access to education? Students often know that problems need solutions, but they may not realize how many different people and organizations can contribute.

In this Pair Matching game, students connect each problem with a suitable helper, such as an environmental organization, a government service, a company, or a professional. Use the activity to start a conversation about why different challenges require different kinds of support. Encourage students to explain their matches and consider how several partners could work together to achieve an even greater impact.

4. Small Actions, Strong Partnerships

Sometimes, a story is all students need to understand an important idea. In this Split Worksheet, students read about teamwork and discover how people can combine their strengths to overcome a challenge. The story introduces the idea behind SDG 17 in a relatable way, showing that everyone can contribute something valuable.

Use the worksheet to help students reflect on the characters' actions and the importance of cooperation. After reading, ask them to identify what each person contributed and how the outcome might have been different if everyone had worked alone. Students can then connect the story to partnerships in their classroom, community, or the wider world.

5. Green Valley: Working Together for Change

What would you do if your community faced a serious problem and you had to find a solution? In this WebQuest, students enter Green Valley, a fictional community dealing with challenges inspired by real-world issues, including environmental pollution, unequal access to education, and food insecurity.

Students join the Global Partnership Team to investigate a challenge through four missions. They identify suitable partners and develop a realistic solution, discovering how governments, schools, businesses, organizations, and citizens can work together to create change. You can find each widget used in the webquest individually here.

6. Create Art for a Better World

Partnerships are not only something students can read about or discuss. They can also represent their ideas creatively. In this worksheet, students explore how collaboration can make the world a better place and use their imagination to create an artwork that communicates this message.

Students can draw, paint, create a collage, or make a 3D artwork showing how different partners work together toward a shared goal. A short quiz helps them develop their ideas before creating. Finally, students present their artwork and explain how each partner contributes to making a difference.

7. Myth or Fact? Understanding Global Partnerships

Do students really understand how partnerships help achieve global goals? This Myth or Fact? worksheet challenges them to think carefully about statements related to SDG 17 and international cooperation. By deciding whether each statement is a myth or a fact, students revisit key ideas and test what they have learned.

Use this worksheet as a quick knowledge check after introducing SDG 17 or completing other activities in this blog post. Once students have finished, discuss surprising statements and encourage them to explain their answers using real-world examples. This reinforces the importance of cooperation and global partnerships in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

8. The Power of Partnerships Crossword

After exploring partnerships through different activities, students can use a crossword to revisit the important words and concepts they have learned. The Power of Partnerships Crossword gives them a fun way to review vocabulary connected to SDG 17 while practicing their problem-solving skills.

Use this activity as a lesson wrap-up, a short revision task, or an independent classroom assignment. You can also ask students to choose a few words from the crossword and explain how each one connects to partnerships. This gives them an opportunity to show not only that they remember the vocabulary, but also that they understand why cooperation matters.

More ready-to-use SDG lesson plans and resources

Reminder: This is the final post in our blog series featuring lesson activities for teaching the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Explore all our previous posts below to discover more ready-to-use activities for your classroom:

• 8 Engaging Lesson Plans to Teach "SDG 1: No Poverty" to Your Students
• 8 Creative Ways to Teach "SDG 2: Zero Hunger" to Your Students
• 8 Free Lesson Plans to Teach "SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being"
• Bringing SDG 4 into the Classroom: 8 Lesson Ideas for Quality Education
• 8 Free Lesson Plans on SDG 5 Gender Equality for all Grade Level Students
• 8 Free Digital Lessons for Teaching SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
• 8 Exciting Lesson Ideas to Teach Students About SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
• 8 Digital Lessons to Teach Students about SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• 8 Creative Ways to Teach SDG 9 - Infrastructure, Industrialization and Innovation - in Your Classroom
• SDG 10 Explained for Students: 8 Digital Lesson Plans on Reduced Inequalities
• Bringing SDG 11 into the Classroom: 8 Lesson Ideas for Sustainable Cities & Communities
• 8 Creative Lesson Plans to Teach SDG 12: Responsible Consumption & Production
• 8 Digital Lessons on SDG 13 to Engage Students with Climate Change
• 8 Creative SDG 14 Lesson Plans for Teaching Life Below Water
• 8 Inspiring SDG 15 Lesson Plans for Teaching Life on Land
• 8 Engaging SDG 16 Lesson Plans for Teaching Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

And if you can't wait this long for all the other posts, we've already created 1 lesson for each SDG in this digital group work planner activity. Here's the blog post about teaching the SDGs. You can find all the separate SDG activities in this BookWidgets group folder, in case you want to duplicate the activities and make some changes.

How to Use BookWidgets AI Assistant for This Lesson

The BookWidgets AI Assistant helps teachers create engaging, interactive learning activities more easily. From generating quizzes and transforming existing worksheets into interactive exercises to adapting content for different learning levels and translating activities, it supports you throughout the lesson creation process. You stay in control of the final result, making it easy to create learning materials that fit your students’ needs.

Generate Real-World Partnership Scenarios in Seconds

To bring SDG 17 closer to home, ask the AI Assistant to "Create 5 realistic community challenges, such as local food waste or park pollution, along with three distinct community partners who can collaborate to solve each one." You can then instantly convert these tailored scenarios into an interactive Pair Matching game or discussion quiz suited to your students' grade level.

Wrap Up

SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals shows students that meaningful change often starts when people join forces. Whether they want to protect the environment, improve access to education, or support families in need, collaboration can help turn ideas into real solutions.

By exploring these challenges through interactive activities, students can discover that everyone has something to contribute. They learn to identify who can help, understand why different skills and resources matter, and think creatively about how partnerships can make a difference. These lessons also encourage students to look beyond a problem itself and consider what people can achieve when they work toward a shared goal.

With BookWidgets, you can bring these ideas into your classroom in many different ways. Let students match problems with potential helpers, explore global partnerships on an interactive image, get creative with an artwork, or take on the Green Valley Mission in a webquest. You can copy the activities to your own BookWidgets account, adapt them to your students' needs, and share them through your LMS. Find all the activities in this BookWidgets group.

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