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In these times, when uncertainty, instability, complexity and rapid change are creating environmental, economic, and social challenges young children are most affected by ongoing human impacts on the Earth. This symposium focuses on early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) in relation to shifts in theory, policy and pedagogy. In this presentation, we bring together international perspectives to critically reflect, but also highlight ways forward in ECEfS. We especially discuss and critically analyse children’s lives today in the age of the Anthropocene in the context of both historical and contemporary theories in early childhood education. We offer contemporary post-humanist research that aims to challenge Anthropocentric thinking about the human and nature interrelationships and has significant implications for shifting pedagogy in early childhood education. In addition, we share a broad international overview on curriculum and policy shifts in ECEfS with a focus on new ECEfS benchmarks recently established in some national curriculum documents. Lastly, we recognise that children’s lives in the age of the Anthropocene are influenced by political and cultural contexts and offer insights into possible steps for change. Overall, we aim to challenge assumptions and orthodoxies for transformative change to happen internationally, both in ECEfS research and in early childhood education theory, policy and pedagogy.

This booklet provides an understanding of science education for young children in terms of both a theoretical basis for planning and a selection of practical experiences. The theoretical and practical sections are organized separately, and readers are advised that an understanding of the theoretical approach is essential prior to implementing the practical ideas. The theoretical section asks and explores the questions: What is science? Why teach science to young children? What are the aims of teaching science to young children? The next section gives practical advice on planning science experiences and on encouraging science experiences that are spontaneous and unplanned. The last section presents a selection of science topics as a stimulus and starting point for developing science with young children. Each topic addresses some basic concepts and includes relevant science information, practical comments, and suggestions for science experiences. The science topics presented are: animals, air, electricity, the human body and health, light, magnets, plants, sound, and water. Contains 17 references. (AS)

Complex topics such as sustainability need to be addressed through diverse and innovative approaches to awareness raising, problem solving and action taking. In previous research, I have explored the intersection of the Arts and Education for Sustainability and found that early childhood preservice teachers’ positive attitudes towards sustainability, and their desire to “make a difference,” were enhanced through their engagement in an integrated Arts and sustainability subject in which they were introduced to the images of American visual artist, Chris Jordan (www.chrisjordan.com). Jordan’s images are typically composed of vast numbers of objects or photographs of wildlife affected by plastic pollution, illustrating one aspect of the unsustainability of human consumption patterns. While we now know a little about how adults might respond to powerful and confronting images, we know less about how children might respond. Ethical questions arise about how educators might employ such visual tools in schools and early childhood contexts, or whether such challenging images should be used at all with young people. In this chapter, I present the stories of an early childhood educator and a marine biologist, and explore their unique perspectives on the risks and benefits of sharing confronting images with children. These stories shed light on issues associated with disruption, risk, and children’s capabilities for action taking for sustainability. I argue that findings from this study usefully add to conversations about the potential benefits of bold and risky teaching strategies that challenge traditional protective approaches to teachers’ work with children. The two educators who tell their stories here are unusual because of their background disciplines. Their stories challenge researchers and early childhood education practitioners to reconsider children’s capabilities for sustainability awareness and action taking. In addition, I discuss how images can send ri

Many universities internationally have agreed to create an “institutional culture of sustainability” and educate “for environmentally responsible citizenship” (Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future, 1990), with willingness to leverage their profiles through engagement with the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations General Assembly, 2015) and as signatories to initiatives such as the Talloires Declaration of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future. In Australia, some universities are members of the Green Gown Award Scheme dedicated to recognizing excellence in sustainability within the tertiary sector. At the school level, Education for Sustainability (EfS) is formally embedded in the national curriculum, while the national Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) includes environmental and sustainability topics (DEEWR, 2009). Despite a watering down of sustainability in the recently revised National Quality Standard (NQS) (ACECQA, 2018, environmental responsibility is still considered an aspect of a quality program for children in early childhood and care settings. With such high-level policy levers supporting EfS at university and practitioner level, what is the contribution of initial teacher education (ITE) – and specifically initial early childhood teacher education (IECTE) – to developing educators who are advocates for environmental and sustainability education? The authors investigated this question through two interrelated research projects. The first involved an audit of EfS within IECTE in Australian universities regarding the extent to which “sustainability” appeared in publicly-available program materials. The second involved a systematic literature review, both national and international, to investigate what has already been researched and reported about EfS within IECTE. Our chapter uses evidence from these two studies to advocate for stronger commitment to EfS in IECTE and to ally this with a robust research agenda f

In this chapter, we focus on early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) inrelation to historical and contemporary theories in early childhood education andbeyond. Children’s lives today in the age of the Anthropocene are discussedand critically analysed in the light of early childhood education history, philosophiesand theory. We discuss contemporary ECEfS research, as well as how such researchunderstandings can challenge hegemonic thinking and acting in relation to practicesand philosophies of the everyday pedagogic in early childhood settings. The knowledge–practice gap and rhetoric–reality gap for practitioners is problematized. Finally,we scrutinize the possibility for transformative critical pedagogies through multiple andholistic approaches in ECEfS.

A significant theorist in the early childhood education field is Urie Bronfenbrenner who, in 1979, proposed his “ecological systems theory,” sometimes referred to as the “ecological framework for human development.” This theory offers a multidimensional systems model for understanding the influence of family through to economic and political structures; thus, it presents a way of understanding the human life course from early childhood through to adulthood. In this theory, the ecological framework enables the mapping of information about individuals and their contexts over time in order to understand their diverse systemic interconnections. A critique of this model, however, from a childhoodnature stance, is that it ignores consideration of human-nature interconnections. Thus, it is a deeply anthropocentric model of human development that is at odds with emergent post-humanist thinking that seeks to de-center the human condition. In this chapter, we argue that the pervasiveness of this human-centered systems approach works against sustainability, in that it reinforces the sociocultural, political, and economic dimensions of being human at the expense of environmental interconnections. Drawing on systems theory, post-humanist theory, new materialism, a critical lens to pedagogy, and new sociology of childhood, we propose alternative ways of approaching Bronfenbrenner’s work that, both, facilitates human connections and strengthens children and nature connections that have implications for early childhood education philosophy and pedagogy.

The early childhood years are regarded as the most significant period for human development; yet, education investments in environmental education/education for sustainability (EE/EfS) have been largely overlooked in the early years (UNESCO 2014). This is changing, however, as internationally the uptake of sustainability by both early childhood practitioners and researchers hasve recently accelerated.; Iit would appear that, finally, sustainability is moving inforward from the margins. This chapter offers an analysis of early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) theory and practice in Australia - recognised as a leader in ECEfS - drawing on historical and international contexts, key theoretical perspectives and policy directions informing broader uptake. Current research highlights that such systemic change is not without tensions and challenges for the Australian early childhood field; these are also shared here. We believe the Australian experience with ECEfS offers pointers for other parts of the world that are looking to ramp up their ECEfS activities.