Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is an enterprise which impacts the social and economic standing of communities globally. ECEC quality, accessibility, innovation and sustainability have been considered in a wide body of research. However, there was a gap in research when considering non-traditional (specifically, nature immersion) ECEC,…

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…

Early Childhood Environmental Education (EECE) and Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS) are becoming increasingly integrated into preschool curricula, highlighting their key role in shaping environmentally conscious and sustainably oriented generations from an early age. The mentioned concepts represent the theoretical starting…

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…

This article reports how Swedish teachers' aims and practices were modified by an ecosystem services development project that introduced insect hotels, bird boxes and planting to ten preschool yards. Teachers' understanding of ecosystem services, human--nature relationships and the impact of these on nature connectedness showed that their…

Climate change is a major environmental challenge society is facing. While young children will experience the impacts of climate change for longer, research into their perceptions of climate change is scant. To address this gap, this qualitative case study presents the perceptions of climate change of 10 young Maltese children (4-7 years). Data…

It is crucial that future generations have the knowledge about nature and the willingness to make right decisions for sustainable development, including the halt of global biodiversity loss. Perception of species and the ability to identify wild species (i.e. animals, plants and fungi) are fundamental for the understanding of biodiversity.…

Young children (birth to age 5) are more likely to be expelled or suspended than school-aged children, but we know comparatively little about the precursors to and prevention of exclusion in early childhood settings. Furthermore, what research has been conducted has not been systematically synthesized to inform policy and funding decisions. The…

Environmental education has the potential to extend its transformative potential by reframing social and ecological justice as always interconnected. This paper introduces vulnerable reading as a method for unsettling anthropocentric and colonial influences on how educators conceptualise and respond to environmental precarity through a…

Although preschool principals are important for integrating sustainability, studies on this topic are scarce. Using an embedded mixed methods approach, this study explored and compared 50 principals' views and actions relating to sustainability in the operations of 25 eco- and 25 non-eco-certified randomly sampled preschools from 25 municipalities…

Sustainability is a term that is expressed as the necessary conditions for the ecosystem to maintain its existence in a long process belonging to the science of ecology. It is a concept that has become widespread since the second half of the 20th century and has been associated with different fields such as social life, culture, law, politics,…

Sometimes, contact with the natural environment is not commonly present at school. Often, students are involved in activities considering distant environments which do not correspond to the reality of the environment in which they live. The aim of this research is to find out whether kindergarten aged children who live in the Natural Park of the…

As education is a powerful means of promoting sustainability, it is necessary to think and act on the (trans)formation of the professional profile of the future kindergarten teacher. As ecocentric educational practices can be a crucial point, ecocentric action competence needs to be developed. In this context, pedagogical traineeship supervisors…

Might interacting with relatively wild forms of nature help move our world away from its largely domination-oriented and destructive sensibilities? Toward broaching this question, this study used an Interaction Pattern Approach to model child-nature interaction in a Hong Kong nature program. Observational video data were collected of 54 children…

This study examines the role of nature in children's literature on bookshelves in early childhood education settings to explore how books in kindergarten classrooms represent nature and the relationship between nature and humans. The findings are (a) cursory references, (b) human autonomy over nature, and (c) nature as a learning opportunity.…