Engage, Empower, Enact

Sustainability and the Early Years, a conference to highlight key strategies for moving forward in early childhood education for sustainability. Professionals from Australia, New Zealand, USA, Sweden and Canada, gathered in Melbourne last week to engage in the field of Education for Sustainability (EfS) or Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), through keynote addresses, workshops and tours. I was privileged to be a part of this inspiring conference and for three days I attended workshops, listened to keynotes, took notes, talked to people, shared information, exchanged ideas, and shared good food, good drinks, and good company.

Education is humanity's best hope and most effective means in the quest to achieve sustainable development (UNESCO 1997). This powerful statement lead to the establishment of the United Nations Decade for Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). We are half way through the decade and many efforts have been taking place around the world. For those who would like to read more about some of these efforts I recommend the UNESCO publication, "The contribution of early childhood education to a sustainable society", (UNESCO, 2008), download as pdf.

At the start of the Melbourne conference, Julie Davis, first keynote speaker, elaborated on sustainability education for young children. "With support, protection and education, young children can be resilient and positive about the state of the world and their place in shaping healthy, just and sustainable futures." (Julie Davis)

It is evident that today's children are aware of environmental issues and can be very sensible and insightful in their thinking. It is imperative that early childhood education is recognised as the starting point for a lifelong learning within education for sustainability (the Göteborg recommendations 2008). ESD is the contribution of the world's education, public awareness and training systems to learning our way towards a more sustainable future.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not.

- The Lorax, by Dr. Suess

As early childhood educators we are trained to engage children in activities and experiences, our emphasis is on empowering the children in our care. We "do" recycling, we "have" a wormfarm, we "save" rainwater. We engage, we empower, but how do we enact?

Enacting sustainability is more than acting out. Sue Elliott, in her closing keynote, summed it up in one keyword, mindshift. We need to work on "collective and multiple mind shifts creating an embedded culture of sustainability." EfS goes "beyond practices: it is about people and what mind shifts we make as a result of enacting practices." (Sue Elliott)

How are we transformed by the experience? How does it impact on our daily thoughts, decisions and actions. How can we make this journey happen at a deeper level?
What are your thoughts?
- Anja

Pavement outside The Ian Potter Foundation Children's Garden, Melbourne
(thanks Sue)

Environmental education for young children

The latest Catlin Arctic Survey reveals that the Arctic seas will be largely open in summer within ten years (Science Daily, 15 October 2009). In 2020, our preschool children will be teenagers, and on their way to adult hood. As teenagers they will make important decisions that will have an impact on their study, jobs, partnership and their way of living. As our upcoming leaders they need attitudes, values, knowledge and skills that enable them to make passionate, innovative, compassionate, and creative choices that will have a positive impact on our environment and contribute to a sustainable future. These dispositions need to be nurtured in early childhood and environmental education should play and important role in this.

“Young children may not be old enough to understand why they should be concerned with environmental neglect, but they are old enough to appreciate the beauty of the world and to begin developing good habits (Spodek, 1991).”

Environmental education needs to start at an early age, not with imparting knowledge, but with hands-on experiences with nature. Free play in the outdoors, opportunities to interact with the natural world through discovery and exploration, are crucial to young children's healthy development. It's difficult to teach children regard for nature during the school years if they haven't had the chance during early childhood to fully understand what the concept means.

Young children tend to develop emotional attachments to what is familiar and comfortable for them. The opportunities we give them to interact and develop a relationship with the natural world, will help them to develop tools for environmental responsibility and ecological understanding. With young children sometimes spending up to 50 hours per week in early childhood settings, early childhood educators have an important role. Opportunities for our young children to explore the wonders of plants, bushes, trees, flowers, and animals are diminishing. We have to give them time and places to explore and interact with nature and living elements before they can understand it well enough to want to look after it.

Both our preschools, Tawa Montessori and Little Earth Montessori are Enviroschools. As an enviroschool we are committed to building a sustainable community. This is reflected in our carbon conscious practices and operation principles, our living curriculum, a supportive community, and our natural environment.

However, we can do more, with the children being our first priority. We can involve them at a level that is meaningful and understandable to them. Because children tend to naturally take care of what they love, we need to nurture their love for the earth. Teaching our young children to be aware of their natural surroundings and to take care of those surroundings by participating in them is a crucial aspect of environmental education for young children. We can introduce our young children to a sense of simplicity, to take only what is needed, without wasting, and to place the common good above personal comfort.

Connecting our young children with the natural world, giving them a time and place to freely interact with nature, and introducing them to good environmental habits at a young age, are important key factors in our journey to a more sustainable community.

Later this week I will fly across the Tasman. The EEEC (Environmental Education in Early Childhood), is hosting a conference about Sustainability for the Early Years, which I will be attending. The conference in Melbourne (AUS), titled Engage, Empower, Enact: Sustainability and the Early Years, focuses on strategies for moving forward in early childhood education for sustainability. With international keynote speakers, practical workshops and discussion papers, I am looking forward to three days of having my mind challenged, being inspired and gaining new knowledge, values, skills, and attitudes. Teaching is a lifelong journey!
- Anja

Preparing the outside environment for summer

Two weeks of school holidays finished today. Our Tawa Montessori preschool was closed and we have used that time to have a good look around our garden, reflect on our practices, and to think about our next garden projects. We have several projects lined up and it is important we carefully think about how we are going to implement them with the children, in order to give them ownership and a sense of pride and belonging.

There is the new potting shed which needs a place and assembling. Then there are the vegie gardens which need replanting after winter and then we have the chickens who "love our vegie gardens too much". We also would like to attract more beneficial insects to our garden and what better way to do this then building an insect hotel.

The vegie garden versus chickens issue poses a real dilemma. After careful thinking we decide to move the vegie garden out of reach of the chickens, rather then moving the chickens out of reach of the garden, as the latter would mean the chickens wouldn't have access to the compost heap anymore. Somehow I have this idyllic picture in my mind that a compost heap needs to have scratching chickens.

Moving the garden it is. Actually, moving isn't really an option, as the garden boxes are well fixed to the ground. We are going to have to build new ones. The only available spot we have is an unused patch of concrete, at the side of the classroom, accessible only through a pathway. It is not the most ideal area, but it will make good use of the concrete patch and a gate to keep the chickens out can easily be installed, if deemed necessary. As we are now going to garden on concrete we will have to make a no dig garden. This in itself adds another dimension to the project as the children will have to think about what ingredients are in soil and how to make a good soil for in the planterboxes.

Making a no dig garden in another part of the garden means we are going to be left with two big planter boxes in a prime spot. One is currently growing an abundance of broad beans. It is obvious the chickens don't like beans, something I can emphatise with. The other planter box is empty. Recently the children dug in fresh compost and the soil in this box is rich and mulch. An ideal place to transform into a flower garden with an insect hotel. Hopefully this way we can attract more butterflies, weta, ladybugs and other little creatures.

While the children are away on holidays, we re-arrange our bottom deck to cater for the new projects. A prepared environment is the cornerstone of an authentic Montessori classroom, inside and outside. It is important we cater for the developmental needs of the children at the right time, while at the same time providing an environment where children can be independent and work at their own pace, following their own interests. An environment like this requires careful thinking about what to provide and what not to put in the environment.

For the garden to be successful it is important the children have ownership. We want our children to be actively engaged in our garden, and to be independent and not too reliable on the teacher. Having access to the right tools and ingredients is crucial. Spades, wheelbarrows, bales of hay and straw, gravel and all kinds of little natural objects that can function as an insect hiding place need to be accessible to the children. The frames for the new planter boxes have been put in place and the old shelf that is going to function as a bug hilton is planted in the garden. These items will undergo a complete transformation as the children will fill up the new planter boxes with layers of hay, manure, straw and compost and then plant the seedlings. Bamboo sticks, branches, old bricks, bark and other suitable object they will find at preschool, at home, in the park or in the bush, will be added to the bug hotel.

With Summer less then two months away we are going to be busy for weeks to come!
- Anja

Spring in Aotearoa - a new banner

A new banner, with a Kiwi flavour, marks Spring, a time of new beginnings, as well as our blog first anniversary and our one hundredth post. With the change of each season we'd like to bring a banner that represents the miracles that each season brings at our enviro preschools in Aotearoa, downunder.

A New Zealand iconic bird, the tui is unique to New Zealand and feeds mainly on nectar from flowers. They are important pollinators of many native trees. Spring is the time when the tui sings high up in the trees in the early morning and later afternoon. We are looking forward to more bird watching and listening to the tui in our neighbouring kowhai trees.

Spring is the time to plant swan plants (Asclepias) in our preschool garden to attract the Monarch butterflies. This season, we are creating more suitable insect habitats by planting appropriate flowering plants and providing secure havens for them to lay their eggs.

Our fruit trees are in full blossom. Over the next few months we will closely watch the transformation taking place from flower bud into a juicy pear or apple. We love our edible garden.

The chickens are part of our preschool community, both at Tawa Montessori and at Little Earth. Spring is new life, a time when many animals nurture their babies and raise their young. It is only a matter of time and the first hen will go broody. We will carefully watch and take care of our broody hens and eagerly wait for any chicks to hatch.

The koru is the new unfurling fern frond. In Maori, the koru symbolises new life, growth, strength and peace. The koru reminds us of the New Zealand native bush and the importance of our connection with Papatuanuku, the earth mother. Nature walks, to observe the miracles and wonders that take place during Spring, are a regular item on our "must do" list at preschool.

The scarecrow symbolises the vegetable garden which is now a hive of activity as we prepare the soil and sow seeds or transplant seedlings. With careful nurturing we will see our plants grow and produce food.

What are your plans for the season?
- Anja

Composting with young children

During one of our regular walks through our garden at Tawa Montessori we notice that our vegetable garden is in desperate need for some tender love and care. Not only has it been an unusual wet winter, the chickens haven't made it any easier either. With winter growth at a minimum, the chickens will eagerly forage in our vegetable garden, pecking the tiniest sprout shooting up or demolishing a forgotten silver beet plant in no time. Twenty preschoolers patrolling the garden, chasing away any chook who dares to jump into our garden, doesn't seem to make any difference to the chickens. I guess they have gotten used to us.

We also notice that the compost looks at its best. Over the past few months the children have diligently added the required mixture of "brown" and "green" stuff, essential for a good working compost heap.

Brown (dead) stuff, high in carbon, has been added in the form of leaves, collected late autumn and straw from the animal enclosures, enriched with manure.

Green (life) stuff, high in nitrogen, has been added daily as the children empty the "compost bowl" onto the heap, which includes fruit and vegetable scraps. Occasional lawn clippings have been added. There has been enough rain to give the compost the required water and the children have regularly turned the compost, adding air (oxygen) to the heap. Making compost is a great activity to do with children. It isn't hard to do and it teaches the children a valuable life lesson about recycling. It also introduces them to science lessons about life cycles, and decomposing. Our compost looks and feels lovely, rich and mulch, and is ready to be used in our garden.

During one of those long awaited sunny, spring days, we pull up our sleeves, swap our shoes for gumboots, our woolly hat for a sunhat and disappear into the the garden. There is work to be done. The ready compost needs to be lifted out of the pile onto the garden, where it will be worked into the soil. A job, I estimate, that shall take longer no than an hour, especially with so many eager helpers.

But what I forget is that my helpers are enviro kids, children that have been raised in a garden where every creature is noticed and respected, and every moment of awe and wonder is shared. Of course I should know better. With every worm we spot we have to stop, admire the creature, and move it over to another part in the garden where it can do "its good work". Of course, I am proud about the children, as this is a disposition we nurture from the moment they enter our preschool, instilling a sense of awe and wonder for the miracles that take place in mother nature.

Now, don't forget, we are digging in a compost heap, and a good working compost heap has LOTS OF WORMS. So, as you can imagine, what would have been a one hour job, turns into a three day job as our compost heap teams with living things. But does it matter? Not the slightest bit. The teamwork and camaraderie while doing the labour of digging and raking, taking turns, helping each other, moving worms, marveling at other little creatures spotted in our tracks, all these moments and experiences in mother nature are priceless and time less. The children show obvious signs of satisfaction, fulfillment and pride.

And after three days of work we now have a lovely rich garden bed, ready for planting, wasn't it that we also have five eager chooks waiting in anticipation... Any suggestions?
- Anja


This post is part 4 of the series "Going Green"
- Going Green part 1 - Recycling
- Going Green part 2 - An enviro care code
- Going Green part 3 - An edible garden