Tomorrow Today

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dren, such as: “Where does life come from?”, “Why

are eggs different from each other?”, “Can a baby

chicken have chickens?” and “Does the egg come

out the same way as poo?” They also asked about the

chickens’ everyday life: “Can they go out?”, “Can they

fly?” and “How can they find the worms?”

From their own questions and from what they

learned from their examinations, the children soon

realised that chickens may live under a variety of

circumstances. They found that many of them live in

small, narrow cages without a place to sit, and have

to stay indoors all their lives. The children wanted to

know where the eggs they usually eat at school came

from. When they were told that they came from chick-

ens that were kept in small cages and unable to go

outdoors, they got very upset. They decided to stop

eating eggs. Together with their teachers, they went to

the people responsible for the school’s purchases with

their protests and complaints about the way the chick-

ens producing the eggs were treated. Their protest led

to changes in the municipal authorities’ and parents’

purchasing habits – they started to buy ecological eggs

from a place where the chickens could go out and live

a good life

Above we have an example of how children can

take part in a search for knowledge that is related to

nature, economy and social aspects of learning for

sustainable development. Lifestyle has to do with

what kind of eggs you buy, which is closely related

to values. But it is also related to the economy, as

organic eggs are more expensive, which may lead

mal and non-formal education and early childhood education were

able to reach general recommendations for ESD. At this workshop

it was recognized that ESD is a question of life-long learning that

has to begin in the early years. Furthermore, the Mid-Term Review

of the DESD held in Bonn, 2009, recognized that early childhood

education had not been taken into consideration when reviewing

what had been done in this field.

The Organisation Mondiale pour l’Éducation Préscolare (OMEP)

was founded in 1948 as a professional non-governmental organi-

zation for early childhood education and peace education, but its

mission and action plan is now devoted to ESD in early years. OMEP

has produced a special issue on research in ESD and early childhood

in the

International Journal of Early Childhood (2009).

An interna-

tional interview study based on OMEP’s motto (‘World Congress

2010: Children – citizens in a challenged world’), is currently under

way in more than 30 countries, which means that about 9,000 chil-

dren from all over the world are involved.

A new world project based on activities with children involving

some of the notions of the 7Rs (see below) will take place within

OMEP next year and we believe it will provide many examples of

good practice. A simple introduction to the field has, in fact, already

been published in a small booklet for early childhood staff.

Work with preschool children in the area of ESD

What does it mean then, to work with young children in the area of

ESD? One approach is based on a number of notions (7Rs) that the

practitioner is supposed to put into practice with young children.

The 7Rs are: respect, reflect, reduce, reuse, repair, recycle

and responsibility. ‘Reduce’ is about reducing the consump-

tion of food, materials and resources such as water, paper and

plastic. This may include working with parents on the problem

of children’s exposure to advertisements promoting endless

consumption. ‘Reuse’ is about showing children that materials

can be reused for different purposes in preschool and at home.

‘Recycling’ can be encouraged by asking children to bring recy-

clable materials to school and integrating them into a range of

activities. ‘Repair’ can be to take care of broken toys and other

objects and repair them. ‘Respect’ is about nurturing under-

standing of and respect for nature and natural processes, and

reducing the extent to which they are violated in many ways.

‘Responsibility’ can be to trust children to take care of something

or be able to do something they can feel proud of; and ‘reflect’ is

a habit and skill everybody will benefit from in working towards

sustainability.

All these notions are easily recognized in everyday life with

children. A lot of these things are carried out as part of preschool

practice in many classrooms, for example, recycling. But it is not

enough to simply do it; we also have to focus on communication

and interaction to make children aware of how actions are related to

a sustainable world, on a level they can make sense of.

Another example is work on the theme ‘life’, carried out with chil-

dren ranging from four to six years of age in a Swedish preschool.

The theme of nature that children and teachers considered

initially was “What is life?” The focus then moved towards hens

and chickens, and the children asked, for example: “Why are there

chickens in some eggs, but not in others?” They also asked how

life could begin in a chicken. To find out about this, they decided

to read books about it and ask someone they thought would know

about this phenomenon. Many questions were posed by the chil-

“What is life?” Preschool project, Värmdö, Sweden

Image: Göteborgs universitet