Context and rationale
The authors, based at the Arlitt Center for Education, Research & Sustainability at the University of Cincinnati, argue that early childhood education (ECE) in the USA is dominated by prescribed curricula and pressure towards accelerated academic learning. They note there is no official national ECE framework: each of the 50 states sets its own Early Learning Guidelines, and the five US territories without statehood lack ECE infrastructure altogether, facing what the authors describe as challenges of representation, isolation and colonialism. "Quality", they suggest, therefore remains open to interpretation.
They set this against climate risk, citing roughly 20 million children under five in the USA and a UNICEF Children's Climate Risk Index score of 5.0 on a 10-point scale.
Method
This is an argumentative, descriptive chapter — not a study with participants, sampling or data collection. Its evidence base is documentary analysis of guidelines and literature, plus three illustrative programme profiles selected by the authors.
What the chapter identifies
1. DAP is necessary but insufficient. The 2022 fourth edition of Developmentally Appropriate Practice covers six facets of practice and six pillars of playful learning, but the authors argue it under-explores children's rights, agency and cultural context, and that "playful learning" is often reinterpreted in practice as directed instruction.
2. Nature-based early learning (NBEL) is expanding fast. Nature-based preschool numbers reportedly grew from around 20 centres in 2008 to over 800 in 2023, supported by NAAEE's Natural Start Alliance and two practice guidebooks.
3. Access remains unequal. The authors state that most US nature-based programmes mainly serve white, middle- to upper-income families, and that breaking down socio-economic barriers is an unresolved sustainability issue, particularly in urban areas.
4. Three programmes illustrate ECEfS principles. The Highlander School (Atlanta, Georgia) grounds practice in anti-bias education and civil rights history, with children and families advocating for protection of a local forest. The Squaxin Island Child Development Center (Shelton, Washington) served mainly Native American children aged four weeks to five years, integrating tribal elders, the Lushootseed language and ceremony into nature-based learning. Little Trees at Morton Arboretum (Lisle, Illinois) serves 3–5 year olds across a 1,700-acre site, using emergent projects — including a year-long enquiry into a blocked storm drain — to build problem-solving and agency.
Implications for practice
• Audit whether your programme documentation describes children as dependent or as capable of acting on real problems.
• Follow children's spontaneous interests into genuine local issues — water systems, forest protection, seasonal species returns — rather than running discrete nature activities.
• Where Indigenous communities are partners, involve knowledge holders directly in curriculum rather than referencing traditional ecological knowledge second-hand.
• Build in reflective time for staff to examine their own assumptions; the authors argue this professional disposition, not resources, is what distinguishes ECEfS practice. Megan Gessler's framing — what is outside your own window — is offered as a way in for programmes without extensive natural sites.
The Bottom Line
In this chapter the authors review US policy documents, professional guidelines and published literature, then describe three early years programmes chosen to illustrate their argument. They suggest that dominant US notions of "quality" in early childhood education, shaped by the NAEYC's Developmentally Appropriate Practice guidelines and Head Start standards, still picture the child as dependent rather than agentic, and fall short on children's rights, cultural context and sustainability. The authors argue that Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS) — an approach centring children as active contributors to environmental and social change — offers a unifying framework. For practitioners, the chapter is useful as a reflective prompt and a source of programme examples.