Sustainability Matters in Early Childhood contains ideas, activities, and experiences that promote the ‘creativity and curiosity’ of young children to take steps towards a greener future by engaging with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Developed in partnership with Dr Diane Boyd, senior early years lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, who wrote a series for Nursery World on the 17 SDGs, the free resource aligns itself with the Government's sustainability and climate change strategy for education and children's services systems, published in April 2022.
The key messages relating to learning and play in strategy include:
• Nature
• The causes and impacts of climate change
• The importance of sustainability
The strategy states that children must be provided with practical opportunities to ‘increase climate resilience, reduce carbon impact and enhance biodiversity’, which will enable them to take positive action to improve their community and their planet.
Suggestions outlined in the resource include growing vegetables, being part of the eco-school initiative or engaging in decision-making in areas such as recycling, weather and energy monitoring.
Janet King, sector manager for education and childcare at NCFE, said, ‘There’s no better place to start thinking about sustainability than the early years.
‘Small steps taken and advocated by practitioners through everyday conversation, experience, and opportunity supports best practice. The resource allows for this in a fun, engaging, interactive and inclusive way.’
This new resource comes a year after the authors collaborated on the Early Childhood Education for Sustainabilityresource, which went on to win the 2022 Education for Sustainable Development Award, selected by the World Organisation for Early Childhood Education (OMEP).
- Sustainability Matters in Early Childhood is available here