SHORTLIST SPOTLIGHT: SPORT FOR INNOVATION AND TECH AWARD
Our coverage of this year’s Official Shortlist continues by taking a closer look at those programs shortlisted for the Sport for Innovation and Tech Award. All these programs are using sport to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. Each of the shortlisted programs have demonstrated their ability to use sport to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
FBB: Youth Voices - Football Beyond Borders, UK
Football Beyond Borders’ project aims to tackle the linked problems of educational underachievement and social exclusion for young people from deprived communities.
As an education charity, they use the promise of football not simply as an incentive to study, but as the tool through which all learning takes place. Each weekly session of the 38 week programme is divided 50/50 between pitch based learning and classroom based learning. All learning in the classroom takes place through their football-themed literacy curriculum. Each half-term contains a different project theme, which is designed to provide students with engaging tasks focused on developing their non-fiction, persuasive and creative writing skills, their oracy and their reading comprehension.
NBA and Discovery Education Team Up for a Math Slam Dunk! - NBA and Discovery Education, USA
The NBA and Discovery Education partnered in November 2016 on a new multi-year initiative designed to deepen middle and high school students' engagement in mathematics nationwide by combining the passion for professional basketball with key math concepts. This new collaboration harnesses students’ interest in professional basketball to help teach important mathematics concepts. Interactive math problems, derived from NBA and WNBA game footage and statistics such as points, rebounds, assists and more, have been integrated into Discovery Education’s Math Techbook™. This has transformed the way students and teachers experience math through engaging instructional strategies and real-world problems that motivate and excite students with diverse learning styles.
Station Soccer – Soccer in the Streets, USA
Station Soccer connects youth and adults that would not normally meet by providing a space to play inside a transit station. In the US, soccer has become a predominantly white middle class sport - projects like this are opening up the game to minorities and those from low income backgrounds by making the game affordable and accessible. Globally, over time many of the world's best players have come from low income backgrounds. By providing access to the game through transit, SS are helping to change the culture in the US and break down barriers. They are building healthy, safe spaces to play and connecting communities for an integrated social platform of sport for all.