As part of a revision to the content and delivery of first-year chemistry instruction at the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus, we have employed the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) as a thematic framework. This framework was introduced to promote the achievement of affective learning outcomes, including a systems thinking approach to exploring the relevance of first-year chemistry content and concepts to societal and global challenges. Through this framework, sets of course concepts, which are traditionally limited in their application to isolated textbook chapters, are demonstrated, through various in-class group activities, to have collective applications to the environmental and societal systems embodied by specific SDGs. Student attitudes to this framework and its associated activities were examined via a course-end survey and in-depth semistructured interviews. Student responses were generally positive, indicating an appreciation for the relevance of course concepts to the global challenges described by the SDGs, and for many students, the SDG-framed learning activities aided in their understanding of course concepts.

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In recent years, pedagogical advancements have allowed the adoption of more engaging forms of course assignments to help students better understand and communicate chemistry. In this context, informational graphics, known as infographics, emerge as an effective teaching aid in educational settings and in disseminating scientific content to the public. This article describes the design of an infographic assignment and its implementation in a first-year chemistry laboratory course at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus. The overarching goal of this assignment was to incorporate the thematic framework of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into the laboratory curriculum while encouraging systems thinking and promoting science communication initiatives. The students’ attitudes toward this assignment via submitted self-reflection survey results are also discussed. Our findings reveal an overall positive student experience suggesting the infographic assignments’ ability to foster student engagement and critical thinking skills.