8 Digital Lessons to Teach Students about SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

Decent work and economic growth are at the heart of Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8). This goal emphasizes the importance of creating inclusive job opportunities, promoting entrepreneurship, and ensuring safe, fair, and productive working conditions for all. It’s about empowering individuals and communities to thrive—economically, socially, and personally.

For educators and students, SDG 8 opens the door to powerful classroom discussions around economic inequality, fair labor practices, and sustainable development. It’s a chance to inspire students to think critically about the world of work and their role in shaping a more equitable global economy.

In this post, you’ll discover 8 interactive, digital lesson activities made with BookWidgets and designed to introduce your students to SDG 8 and help them explore the concepts of decent work and economic growth in meaningful and age-appropriate ways.

Let’s dive in!

The digital SDG 8 activities are created with BookWidgets, a content creation and student learning evaluation tool for teachers. You can make a free copy of the lessons below to your BookWidgets account, or you can navigate to this BookWidgets group folder where you can find them all together. You can duplicate the activities, make changes (language, instructions, settings) when needed, and share it with your students. When your students complete the activities, you will also receive the results and be able to provide feedback.

Make sure to check out more SDG resources below, and stay tuned as we release a new blog post with ready-to-use SDG lessons every month!

What is SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth?

SDG 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth, is one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Its main objective is to promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all by 2030.

This includes goals like ending child labor, supporting entrepreneurship, improving labor rights, and fostering innovation. It also emphasizes equal pay for equal work, job creation in clean and green industries, and better access to vocational education and job training—especially for youth and marginalized populations.

Why should teachers include SDG 8 in their lessons?

• Empowers future workers: Teaching SDG 8 helps students understand their rights, responsibilities, and opportunities in the world of work.
  
• Promotes social justice: Lessons on fair labor, child labor, and wage inequality promote empathy and awareness of global and local economic issues.
  
• Builds financial literacy: SDG 8 introduces students to concepts like budgeting, saving, and entrepreneurship—skills that prepare them for real life.
  
• Inspires innovation: Let students explore how businesses and economies can grow sustainably while solving real-world problems.
  
• Encourages global thinking: Students connect with the bigger picture of how economic decisions impact people and the planet across borders.
  
• Cross-curricular relevance: Topics related to SDG 8 connect easily to social studies, economics, career readiness, math, and even language arts.
  

Check out this checklist with all of the target goals for SDG 8.

8 Free and Interactive Lesson Plans to Teach SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth

1. Decent Work and Economic Growth- Video Quiz

Introduce elementary and middle school students to Sustainable Development Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth with this interactive Video Quiz widget, designed to reinforce key concepts through visual learning and critical thinking. The video quiz is built around an educational video created by Smile and Learn, which clearly explains the importance of fair wages, the right to decent working conditions, the global impact of child labor, and the challenges faced by vulnerable groups in the workforce. As students watch the video, they respond to embedded comprehension and reflection questions that support deeper understanding. This low-prep, high-impact activity is perfect for primary and middle school students exploring global citizenship, social justice, and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

2. Flies and the Century-Old Stable - Split Worksheet

Explore entrepreneurship and innovation with this SDG 8 reading activity for upper elementary and middle school students. In this interactive Split Worksheet, students read the short story “Flies and the Century-Old Stable” from Naratopia and respond to comprehension and critical thinking questions. This reading activity helps students reflect on how creative ideas can solve real-world problems and create opportunities for meaningful work in their own communities.

3. SDG 8 Vocabulary and Definitions

Help your middle and high school students build confidence with key SDG 8 vocabulary through engaging, low-stress, game-based learning. This set of digital activities introduces students to essential terms like decent work, unemployment rate, labor productivity, and more using three interactive widget-types: the Flashcards, Pair Matching Game, and Memory Game.

Using the Import Feature, one list of vocabulary terms can be transformed into three different widget activities in just a few clicks—perfect for reinforcing learning across multiple formats while keeping students actively engaged. These activities are ideal for introducing Sustainable Development Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth in your economics, civics, or global studies classroom.

💡 Want to learn more about the Import Feature? Check out this blog post: How to Import Questions from Other Widgets in BookWidgets - The Possibilities. We walk you through three easy steps for reusing already created content in your widget activities.

4. Working Hours - Split Worksheet

This data-driven activity, created with the Split Worksheet widget, helps students explore the relationship between wealth, productivity, and working hours across different countries. Using the interactive article from Our World in Data, students analyze historical trends and dynamic visualizations, including time-lapse charts that show how working hours have changed over time. On the right side of the widget, students answer a series of comprehension and critical thinking questions, including a long-answer reflection connecting economic opportunity to personal career goals. This activity is ideal for middle and high school students in social studies, economics, or global citizenship lessons and can be used for independent reading, group discussion, or as part of a research assignment.

5. Job Interview Practice Bingo

This Job Interview Practice Bingo activity was created using the Bingo Card widget and helps students build confidence in responding to common interview questions—an essential step toward career readiness and understanding SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. The widget randomly generates a unique 4x4 Bingo board for each student from a list of 20 interview questions, so no two boards are exactly alike. Students choose any 4 questions from their board to answer. Teachers can use this flexible activity in a variety of ways: as a speaking exercise with partners, a group discussion prompt, or an individual writing assignment. Whether you’re working on soft skills, preparing students for mock interviews, or exploring workplace readiness, this game-based format keeps the experience low-stress and engaging.

6. Happiness and the Rat Race - Video Quiz

In this thought-provoking activity for high school students, learners watch the short animated film “Happiness” by Steve Cutts, which follows a rat caught in the endless pursuit of success, wealth, and fulfillment. Using a Video Quiz widget, students view the film and then reflect on its themes of consumerism, societal pressure, and the modern-day “rat race.” To extend the discussion, students read and respond to selected YouTube comments from the video, analyzing different perspectives and connecting them to their own views on happiness, ambition, and what it means to live a meaningful life. This activity is ideal for launching classroom conversations about mental health, social values, and economic pressure—making it a powerful tie-in to SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth.

🎥 Looking for more short film activities to spark discussions? Check out this blog post, 15+ Short films for Students with Ready-to-Use Lesson Ideas. Teaching with short films is a powerful way to engage students emotionally, build critical thinking skills, and connect classroom content to real-world themes—all in under 10 minutes.

7. Introduction to Resume Writing for Teens

Introduce your students to resume writing with this interactive Split Worksheet activity, perfect for middle and high school learners preparing for their first job. The activity features a short, engaging video from @StreetCents that breaks down how to create a professional resume step-by-step. After watching the YouTube Short, students complete auto-graded questions that reinforce and challenge them to apply what they learned by evaluating a sample resume. After submitting their answers, students receive targeted rationales that explain the correct responses and reinforce key resume-writing strategies. This activity is ideal for introducing resume writing in a clear, accessible way—while supporting career readiness and reinforcing the goals of SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth.

8. Resume Writing for Teens Checklist and Peer Review

After evaluating a sample resume and learning the basics, students can begin crafting their own using this Checklist widget. Designed to guide middle and high school students through the resume-writing process step by step, the checklist includes planning tips, formatting reminders, and content prompts—like what to include in the education, skills, and experience sections. Students work through each task at their own pace and finish the activity by self-evaluating their resume or sharing their completed resume with a peer for review. This structured, self-paced tool supports both independent work and collaborative feedback, making it an ideal follow-up to the video-based learning activity.

💡Pro Tip: You can embed this checklist in a Split Worksheet widget for students to self-evaluate their resume. This activity encourages metacognitive thinking as students reflect on both what they included in their resume and how they approached the writing process. Pairing the checklist with open-ended reflection or multiple choice questions deepens engagement and reinforces learning.

More ready-to-use SDG lesson plans and resources

Reminder: This is part eight of our blog post series with lesson activities for teaching the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We will post a new blog about the next SDG in order every month. Go check out earlier blog posts on the SDGs:

• 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

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 and 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.

Wrap up

Teaching SDG 8 through interactive, student-centered activities helps students explore the world of work while developing real-life skills like resume writing, critical thinking, and self-reflection. These ready-to-use BookWidgets lessons make it easy to bring concepts like entrepreneurship, fair labor, and economic growth into your classroom in a meaningful and engaging way. Every activity can be duplicated, customized, and shared with your students in just a few clicks. Be sure to follow along as we continue our monthly SDG series with new digital lessons and classroom ideas.

Want to learn more about creating engaging lesson activities with BookWidgets?

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