Early childhood education for sustainability: Outcomes for social and emotional learning

Many early childhood educators take children outdoors because they see it helping children grow socially and emotionally, not only learn about nature. This study measured those changes in preschoolers over one nature program.

In the Learning in Nature Program, children spend two-hour morning sessions in local bushland (natural woodland), once or twice a week. Each child keeps the same partner for the whole program. Sessions combine play with learning about seasons, local plants and animals, habitats, First Nations perspectives on the land, and caring for the environment.

The researchers followed 83 children, aged about four, at an inner-city preschool in Melbourne, Australia, across two years. Teachers rated each child's behavior, empathy and coping at the start and end of the program, and 17 parents wrote about changes they noticed.

By the end of the program, teachers reported clear changes:

1. Fewer difficulties. Children had fewer problems getting along with peers, fewer emotional problems, and less restless or disruptive behavior.

2. More helping and comforting. Children did more kind and helpful things, such as comforting someone who was upset. How much they noticed others' feelings stayed the same. The researchers think most four-year-olds have already developed this.

3. Better coping. The biggest change was in positive coping, such as turning to others for help and support. Children were less likely to cope by getting upset or by holding their feelings in.

Parents described children who knew more about nature, cared about it, and acted on that care. One son became "a stickler" for picking up rubbish. One girl talked about her friend, the gum tree. Another child led his family on a nature walk and named animals using their Indigenous names. Parents also noticed better concentration, closer friendships, and more confidence in a daughter who had been anxious in new places.

Both years improved. The 2021 group was taught partly by the program's designer, and it made bigger gains in helpfulness and calmer behavior. The 2022 group had less experienced teachers and still improved clearly. The study had no comparison group, so some of the change may also reflect normal development.

What this means for your practice

• Run ECEFS as a sustained curriculum strand, not a token activity. The authors argue the findings support meaningful implementation, in contrast to the superficial programmes identified by Elliott et al. (2016).
• Pair explicit environmental teaching with child-directed nature play. The authors attribute the pro-environmental outcomes to this combination rather than to either element alone.
• Expect wellbeing benefits alongside environmental ones. Because ECEFS may build social-emotional skills, the authors suggest it could act as early intervention for mental health — useful for educators making the case for nature time against competing curriculum demands.
• Experience is not a prerequisite for delivery. Significant gains also occurred in the 2022 cohort, taught by educators without the designer's experience; the authors take this as evidence that such programmes need not depend on a specialist, which matters where unfamiliarity is a barrier to starting.
• Allow time for attitudes to follow knowledge. From the parent data, the authors propose — tentatively — that children built environmental knowledge early in the programme, with emotional connection and changed attitudes appearing later.

Return to Early-Childhood and Nature-Based Learning Collection