Good practice Imported

Be the Change, Take the Challenge

· Nannestad · Transnational

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 66% 56/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Students from all over the world have joined “Be the Change, Take the Challenge” to boost their digital skills and brainstorm problems their communities face. All the issues students come up with must be related to at least one SDG or many of the Sustainable Development Goals. St

101 schools

Schools participating, first edition (Sep 2017–Apr 2018)

245 schools across 54 countries

Schools participating, later edition (not specified)

18,000 students (more than)

Students participating, later edition (not specified)

Details

Maturity: Scaling
Promoter: Nannestad High School — website
Type: Service
Status: Ended
Target groups: Marginalised young people and children
People reached: 18000
Period: 2017-08-31 – 2019-03-31
Keywords: digital skills, solutions, community, global competencies

Context

Nannestad High School (Norway) created 'Be the Change, Take the Challenge' to move students away from rote academic learning and toward using digital tools to engage with real community problems linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Objectives

Build students' digital skills, global competencies and empathy by having international student teams identify SDG-linked community problems and design digital solutions to them.

Activities

Students work in international teams via Skype, Zoom and Google Hangouts to discuss SDG-linked problems, then present solutions using tools such as FlipGrid, Adobe Spark, Canva, WordPress, Anchor and social media. Participating teachers get access to a shared collaborative space and training in the same wide range of free digital tools (annotation, formative assessment, video, content curation, digital storytelling).

Results

From September 2017 to April 2018, 101 schools worldwide took part in the first edition. Participation later grew to 245 middle and high schools across 54 countries, with more than 18,000 students involved.

Conclusions

The source lists 'Evaluation: Yes' and describes the programme as 'very effective and cost-efficient,' but no evaluation methodology or comparison group is described — these are self-reported participation figures from the organising school.

Implementation

Indicative cost: Low (< €50k) — Very low direct cost: relies on free/freemium digital tools (Skype, Zoom, Kahoot, Padlet, FlipGrid, Canva, etc.) and teachers' existing time, with no dedicated infrastructure spend reported.
Time to results: Medium (1–3 years) — Ran continuously from 2017 to at least 2019, expanding each year from 101 to 245+ participating schools.
Staffing & skills: Participating classroom teachers as facilitators, running the programme within existing teaching loads, No dedicated central programme staff described beyond the founding school

Conditions for success

Reliable internet access for the target student population
Teacher willingness/access to a wide range of free digital tools
A clear SDG-linked problem framework to structure student projects

Common failure modes

Success is dependent on realistic internet access, limiting use in lower-connectivity contexts
No independent verification of the claimed 'very effective and cost-efficient' outcome
Growth figures are self-reported by the organising school, not externally audited