Young learners have an innate scientific curiosity and capacity for discovery that can be effectively nurtured through STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education that closely aligns with children's everyday experiences. Early childhood educators recognize the critical role of STEM education in cultivating adaptive and…

The earth is drowning in plastic waste. Yet, as the plastic waste crisis grows exponentially, responses to excess waste remain stuck around containment and management processes. These approaches fail to notice that plastics know no boundaries. We now encounter plastic rocks, plastic water, plastic bodies, plastic worlds spilling into oceans and…

Water is critical to our health and well-being, yet one in three people do not have access to safe drinking water. Earth's water is threatened by pollution, deforestation, urban growth, and climate changes. This article describes a unit for kindergarten children called The Water We Drink.

The aim of this study is to examine the drawings of 5-6-year-old children attending preschool educational institutions regarding their perceptions of recycling. For this purpose, the pictures drawn by children who were administered recycling-themed drama activity and those who were not were examined. The study was designed in an experimental…

This study identified the number of natural environment picturebooks read by young children in Chinese and Korean picturebook libraries and analyzed their content from an ecocritical perspective. The findings indicate that, first, although the number of natural environment picturebooks read by children is higher in Korea than in China, in both…

This article engages with discard studies scholarship to interrogate findings from a study that set out to deliberately follow wastepaper in an early childhood setting. The study, which used participatory methods positioning teachers and children as research partners, began with purposeful noticing and attunement to paper's movements and…

The aim of this study is to examine the effects of environmental education given by creative drama method on 5-6 year old children on environmental awareness of children. The study, which has a mixed model in which qualitative and quantitative methods are used, has a quasi-experimental design with a pre-test and post-test control group. The study…

This study aims to examine the impact on environmental attitudes and awareness of kindergarten pupils of an intensive education programme based on basic science process skills including the 'reduce, reuse and recycle (3Rs)' paradigm for preschool children. A quasi-experimental pattern with non-equivalent pretest-posttest and with a control group…

This research aims to understand Turkish children's views on why protecting the environment is important and to identify the role of schools in the rationales that underlie these views. The research was conducted with 18 preschoolers from two schools, one a state school providing traditional education and the other a private school blended with…

The study aims to assess the effectiveness of a pop-up story-based program in fostering environmental awareness and sustainability among first-grade elementary students. Using a quasi-experimental design, the study included experimental and control groups, each consisting of 56 students, randomly assigned to two groups: 28 in the experimental…

A study was conducted using a correlational screening model to determine the mediating effect of altruism in the relationship between empathic tendencies, the nature relatedness and environmental consciousness. The participants of the study, selected via random cluster sampling design, are composed of 305 pre-school teachers working in pre-schools…

Museum-based settings such as zoos provide a unique opportunity to engage educators in professional development opportunities. For instance, zoo settings can provide professional development opportunities focused on facilitating learning through a lens of conservation action to promote sustained action by teachers and their students. In this…

Children are born into a world today with a drastically changing environmental climate. When young people develop an emotional attachment and sense of identity with nature, they may be more likely to behave in less destructive ways toward the planet and possibly live with a sense of responsibility and respect for nature. This mixed method study…

This study aims to cement the link between systems thinking (ST) and education for sustainability by presenting an example of systems education for young children. A systems education guidebook focused on water and a learning framework based on the guidebook were developed, together with two ST assessment instruments (a shared reading and a…

The current study aims to understand the expectations of pre-service preschool teachers regarding what kind of environment we will live in in the future and the reasons behind these expectations in terms of sustainable development (SD). To this end, the current study was conducted based on a phenomenological model with the participation of 77…