Unlocking Sustainable Development Goals through Computational Thinking: A Search to Inform Computers Education from Citizen Science Dataset

Abstract

Linking sustainable development with computational thinking promotes high-impact problem solving, integrating fundamental concepts of computer programming. This study analyzed the relationship between computational thinking and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using text mining and data visualization techniques. A text mining method was employed to analyze computational thinking and its sub-competencies (decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction and algorithm) appearances in the OSDG Community dataset, consisting of 32,120 text fragments labeled with the associated SDG. Results revealed that computational thinking and its subcompetencies: decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithm, were frequently linked to SDGs 4 (quality education), SDG 5 (gender equality), SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), and SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities). The findings demonstrate the potential of computational thinking to provide innovative solutions to global problems and support the achievement of the SDGs. The study can be of value to stakeholders in the social, governmental, academic and business sectors interested in sustainable development and educational innovation in the application of computational thinking.