Towards Development of an Interactive Mobile Application for Teaching The UNSDG

In aim of a better, inclusive, accessible, and safer future, educational institutions are committed to integrating the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) into their curriculum design and course delivery.Traditionally, a plain literary review of these goals has been adopted by educators.This tends to leave students wondering what a realistic scenario would look like, and how they would approach an urgent call to action.To encourage thrive to learn and delve into action, a gamified reflective and immersive process would be more sought by learners instead of reviewing the definition of goals and their description without any tangible practice.To do so, The York University SDG Uphold (YU-SDG-UP) app was designed to immerse students into a world of those scenarios, where their responses are recorded and graded on an impact scale.This provides an interactive approach which is certain to influence the user's understanding of the SDG, and their attitude towards a sustainable, inclusive, diverse, and equitable future.This is accomplished through developing a mobile application hosting a virtual world with a global health score, where the user interacts with a scenario-based problem-solving framework.Scenarios are presented in text-based descriptions, and followed by a multiple-choice list of actions, all of which hold a weighted impact on the user's global health score.The user is intended to explore these scenarios with the objective of claiming the best possible score through their chosen actions, embracing practical education through trial and error.This activity is anticipated to surpass the traditional means of teaching sustainable development through slideshow presentations, or at least reinforce that knowledge through a virtual decision-making experience.Students can practice their problemsolving skills under realistic conditions and constraints, while understanding the significance of their decisions towards sustainable living.